


In The Most Unexpected Places, I See Changes

by shallowlives



Series: In The Most Unexpected Places, I See Changes [1]
Category: Bandom, Cobra Starship, The Academy Is...
Genre: Blood, Blood Drinking, Canon Jewish Character, Character Turned Into Vampire, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, M/M, Touring, Vampire Turning, Vampire William Beckett, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-30
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:13:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 52,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24993661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shallowlives/pseuds/shallowlives
Summary: It was not a well-known fact that Gabe Saporta and William Beckett despised each other, but oh, theydid.In William’s opinion, Cobra Starship was just a bunch of sell-outs writing horny pop music, while Gabe thought The Academy Is…’s music was nothing more than a bunch of fancy words found in a thesaurus strewn together for emo teenagers to cry to.And then they found out they were going on tour together.-----------William Beckett and Gabe Saporta are enemies. However, when William goes missing during tour and starts acting strangely, Gabe happens to be the first to find out the truth: William's a vampire.
Relationships: William Beckett/Gabe Saporta
Series: In The Most Unexpected Places, I See Changes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1809325
Comments: 48
Kudos: 30





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I finished working on yet another gabilliam vampire fic, oh boy, so here it is. I'll be posting weekly!
> 
> A few notes:  
> \- This is way lighter than my other gabilliam fic, there's definitely a lot less smut (there is still some though) and it's not as serious as the other one. This was honestly refreshing to work on sometimes so idk if you've read my other current fic, you can expect this one to be more lowkey  
> \- This takes place around late 2007, so it's loosely like the Sleeping With Giants tour but it's just TAI and Cobra and no other bands  
> \- Alex Sarti is the tour manager because why the hell not  
> \- I'm currently planning a part 2! :)
> 
> And of course thank you to mikeyskies for being the best beta reader ever and giving me ideas and advice!! Ily so much and I don't deserve you!!!

It was not a well-known fact that Gabe Saporta and William Beckett despised each other, but oh, they _did._ In William’s opinion, Cobra Starship was just a bunch of sell-outs writing horny pop music, while Gabe thought The Academy Is…’s music was nothing more than a bunch of fancy words found in a thesaurus strewn together for emo teenagers to cry to. Whenever they had to see each other, quite often since they were signed to the same label, they were polite although everyone else in the room could sense the rising tension between Gabe and William that threatened to burst at any moment just by being near each other.

So Gabe did his thing and William did his thing, and they hated each other in silence except for the occasional vague blog post or crude joke. It was simply a fact of life they hardly got along outside of the public eye.

And then they found out they were going on tour together.

 _Nope._ No fucking way was William going to be forced to deal with Gabe acting like a diva for a whole tour. No fucking way was Gabe going to put up with William mocking him every damn time he said “Fangs up!” No fucking way in _hell._

When they both heard this news, they were obviously extremely opposed to the idea. They both _tried,_ they tried _so_ hard to get anyone at the label who would listen to change it, but nobody listened. Apparently they had _so_ much chemistry in the Snakes on a Plane music video and all the fangirls who shipped them would _love_ them touring together, and hey, maybe they might actually _learn_ to get along. So the tour was announced and it was set in stone.

The first show was going just fine, at least until William had to perform Snakes On A Plane with Gabe.

Their bodies were like the wrong ends of magnets, attempting to stay as far apart from the other as possible. Gabe swore he was actually trying, but his smile looked just as forced as William’s. And whenever they were within a few feet of each other, or even _looked_ at each other, there was a clear repulsion between the two. The hostility seemed to affect everyone else as well. As they played, Ryland and Alex and Vicky and Nate all looked at each other uneasily. The audience was still singing along, but they seemed confused as to why William had his arms crossed and sulked around the stage as he sang what was supposed to be an upbeat song.

“You can’t just stand there and stare daggers at each other for the whole song!” Their tour manager, Alex Sarti, was yelling at them after the show, “People paid for this!” William and Gabe were barely paying attention; they were pretty exhausted and almost about to fall asleep on the dressing room couches. “Are you even listening to me?”

Gabe was leaning on his elbow on the armrest of the couch, his eyes nearly shut when he suddenly shot up. “Uh… yeah,” He sleepily nodded, before slowly sinking back into his elbow.

“I can’t just pretend to like him,” William sneered. He shifted himself further away from Gabe on the couch although there already was barely any room left to move. “This wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t put the _worst_ fucking band on _our_ tour. Our music clashes! All you sing about is the girls you fuck!”

“You think I wanted to tour with _you,_ some lanky, greasy-haired—“

“Look, all you have to do is pretend to like each other on stage and in interviews and _that’s it,_ ” Sarti said, “Maybe even flirt a little if it doesn’t kill you. If you guys keep acting like this for the rest of the tour, rumors will spread and it’ll be bad news for the both of you. Okay?”

“ _Okayyy,_ ” They both groaned, rolling their eyes at the ceiling.

“Now give each other a hug.”

They both squinted at Sarti, confused. “ _What?_ ”

“Give each other a hug. From this point on, you’re best friends, got it?”

William and Gabe glared at each other until they finally caved in and hugged tentatively, their arms as loose as possible around each other. The warmth of each other’s sweat-soaked bodies was more repelling than comforting. As soon as a second was up, they hurried to get as far apart from each other again as they were before.

“Gabe, have you seen William?”

Gabe groaned, blinking his eyes open to see Ryland standing in front of his bunk. “What?”

“Have you seen William?”

“No, I just woke up, of course I haven’t,” Gabe rolled over to face the wall. He just wanted a few more minutes of sleep without being reminded of _that_ bitch.

“Nobody can find him, he just… disappeared!”

“Of fucking _course_ he would,” Gabe remarked, pulling his blanket further over him. “He just wants attention.”

“I’m not kidding, nobody can find him! He even left his cellphone on his bus. Get up, Gabe!” Ryland hit the back of his head with the pillow he’d brought since he was prepared for exactly this kind of reaction.

“ _Ugh,_ ” Gabe sat up and swung his legs off the bunk, rubbing his eyes. “Look, I have no fucking idea where he is. But I guess I’ll help if I _have_ to.”

He dragged himself off the bus in his t-shirt and pajama pants to see everyone else was outside as well, having urgent conversations or making calls. Everyone seemed stricken with worry, even the members of Gabe’s own band, who he thought he had convinced well enough to hate William too.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Gabe asked, interrupting a conversation between Butcher and Carden. They both looked at him dubiously, given he had sounded like a bratty kid being forced by his mom to offer his help.

“Unless you have any idea where he could have gone,” Butcher said, crossing his arms.

“How do we know this isn’t _your_ fault?” Carden accused, turning toward Gabe and pointing his finger at him. “Last night William came back on the bus in a shitty mood because you were so mean to him after the show! Who knows where he could have gone because you set him off?”

“He was the one being mean to me! He called us the worst band to have a tour with, and I actually _tried_ to act nice to him during Snakes on a Plane, he was the one who messed it up! None of this is my fault if he’s angry over it.”

“There’s going to be no show tonight if we can’t find him!” Carden threateningly stepped toward Gabe. “Can’t you forget for once how much you fucking hate us and be worried about him? He could be anywhere right now, anything could have happened!”

“I _am_ just as worried as everyone else!”

“Worried about your reputation,” Sisky commented from a few feet away. “Not William.”

Vicky gently put her hand on Gabe’s shoulder before the argument could spiral out of control. “How about you go back on the bus?”

Gabe’s glare at three-fifths of The Academy Is…softened and without saying a word, he stormed back into his bus. The bus shook as he stomped up the steps inside.

“William’s back!”

It had been hours since they’d first discovered he was missing. An interview had already been cancelled and they had started to bring up the possibility of postponing the show when Alex had run into Cobra Starship’s dressing room to yell the news.

Everyone else in the room, including Gabe, shot up and ran out of the room to see. Down the hallway, there was William sitting down on a folding chair while the rest of his band fussed over him. William smiled. _Smiled,_ like the entire situation was one big joke to him.

“What the hell happened?” Gabe demanded, broaching the question he knew the rest of his band was too scared to bring up.

William’s smile flattened at the sight of Gabe. He cocked his head as he spat, “Wouldn’t _you_ like to know?”

“What kind of fucking answer is that?!” Gabe snapped. His fingers folded into tense fists at his sides, nails digging into his palms while he yelled, “We were worried sick!”

“I don’t _know_ what happened,” William insisted. “So leave me alone. As long as I act like your boyfriend on stage, you don’t care, right?”

Gabe certainly had more to say about from the way he was blazing with anger, but Ryland, presently being the calmest one of Cobra Starship, asked first, “Seriously, what happened?”

“He won’t tell us, either,” Sisky said. “That’s the problem.”

“Because there is _nothing_ to tell. I’m back, and I’m clearly fine.”

“I’m calling for the paramedics—”

“I told you, everything is fine,” William stood up abruptly and he yanked his thin red sweater over his head, showing off his unmarked bare chest and arms. However, he was still careful to make sure his hair covered his neck. “See? I’m just the same as before,” He balled up the shirt and threw it down at Gabe’s feet. “There’s no need for a paramedic. Where’s our dressing room?”

Gabe couldn’t put his finger on what was different about William during Snakes. Maybe it was just because they were putting on their act of pretending to be able to bear each other, but William seemed to be putting a little _too_ much effort into it. While Gabe sang his part, William slung his arm around his shoulders, leaning in close to his neck and his lips dangerously close to brushing against him. Needless to say, it was quite distracting to feel William’s cold breath on his skin when all Gabe wanted to do was sing.

Well, if _that_ was how he was going to act, Gabe would act like that, too.

When it was William’s part, William did his usual thing while performing, lifting up his shirt and acting all sexy as if anyone cared. But Gabe came up behind him anyway while he was just trying to sing, and slid his hands up William’s thin torso. The audience again went crazy and William grinned wider as he sang as if he enjoyed the attention.

When Cobra Starship’s part of the show was done, William was waiting on the side of the stage for Gabe. As soon as Gabe saw him, he made a beeline toward him and demanded, “What the hell was that?”

“What?” William innocently asked, with an aggravating tilt of his head.

“ _That,_ you know, with all the touching and shit during Snakes!”

“I was just doing what Sarti told us to do. Pretend to get along, and… flirt,” William lifted his thumb to Gabe’s upper lip, brushing away a bead of sweat. He seemed mesmerized by Gabe’s neck as he whispered menacingly, “Don’t pretend you didn’t like it.”

“Just stay the hell away from me off-stage,” Gabe pushed his hand away from his face after letting it linger for _far_ longer than he knew he should have put up with. “Understood?”

“I could say the same to you,” William shrugged, a smirk crossing his lips before he left to get ready for his own band’s set. "But I won't."

“I just feel like there’s something different about him,” Gabe told Ryland while they were watching The Academy Is… perform LAX to O’Hare from the side of the stage. “Like, just _look_ at him. Something’s different from last night. _Something_ happened while he was missing.”

“Or maybe it’s just because he didn’t let you get to him during Snakes.”

“But he’s… something about him is different.”

William was parading around the stage with a liveliness that didn’t seem to be going away anytime soon. His voice was still going strong, and he was romping around theatrically as if he had no thoughts to conserve his energy for the rest of the concert.

“I don’t think I’ve seen him drink _any_ water between songs,” Gabe said as he observed him, “He has to be on drugs. Maybe that’s what happened when he was missing. He definitely snorted cocaine up his pretty little nose.”

“Don't say shit like that.” Ryland gently swatted his shoulder, but smiled with amusement anyway. “You'll spread rumors and he'll hate you even more." Gabe pretended to consider it and shook his head, cracking a grin of confidence as he said, "I don't think he can hate me anymore as it is." "Well, anyway, I doubt he’s high. Maybe he’s in a good mood tonight, and that’s all there is to it.”

As William sang, he looked to the side of the stage at Gabe and Ryland, and winked before looking back at the audience. Gabe shivered. “Now _that’s_ weird.”

“Not really. He just wants to get under your skin. You’re not helping, either, watching him so closely. It’s feeding his ego.”

“I guess you’re right,” Gabe agreed. He watched for a few more seconds before he turned around and left for his dressing room to cut off any potential satisfaction William could gain by forcing every thought in his mind to be _William, William, William._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is definitely longer than the last one, so I hope you enjoy it!

The bus halted to a stop in the middle of the night, jolting Gabe and everyone else awake. The reason turned out to be that The Academy Is…’s bus had pulled over at the side of the road. Gabe and the rest of the band watched from their bus window, staring out at the long stretches of dark fields as someone ran out of the bus and bent over in the field to throw up. In the blinding glow of the bus lights, they could easily tell it was William from his lanky figure and long hair.

“I _told_ you he probably did drugs,” Gabe said as they all watched him empty his stomach in the field. But it didn’t even look like vomit, just some dark liquid that William kept coughing and coughing up for a few minutes while he held his stomach in pain.

“He’s probably just carsick,” Vicky suggested. “It’s happened to all of us.”

“In the middle of the night? When he’s supposed to be sleeping?” Gabe asked. Vicky shrugged. “Exactly. It’s _drugs._ ”

“Just text him and ask.”

“He’s not going to text me back.”

“Just do it.”

Gabe sighed and went to grab his cell phone from his bunk.

Surprisingly, William did text back a few minutes after they were back on the road. _**food poisoning**_ , he said, soon followed by, _**why the hell do u care?**_ It would be perfectly reasonable, except Gabe didn’t think he had seen William eat since he’d gotten back and that was definitely a liquid, not chunky vomit.

Gabe texted back, _**didnt look like food 2 me**_

 _ **go fuck urself gabanti**_ , came the reply.

 _ **with pleasure**_ , Gabe teased. William didn’t text back after that.

Since there was time, they stopped at a small family-owned diner in the middle-of-nowhere for breakfast, the kind with charming yellow walls covered in black-and-white photos and permeated with the scent of hot coffee. Unfortunately, the place had a big enough table to seat both bands together. In the commotion of sitting down, somehow Gabe and William ended up sitting next to each other.

This was the first time Gabe had a chance to look at William for more than a passing glance since last night, and maybe it was just the fact he hadn’t had any coffee yet, but William looked _dead._ Pale and sunken-eyed and picking up his menu with slow and almost _trembling_ hands translucent enough to show the deep blues and purples of his veins, as if he was a reanimated corpse. Gabe secretly texted to everyone else in his band that William most definitely did drugs like he thought, but they reminded him maybe he should cut some slack with his theories this morning because William had been literally _throwing up_ a few hours ago.

The waitress came around to take everyone’s orders. Gabe got orange juice and toast because as a somewhat kosher vegan, there wasn’t really much else he could eat. William ordered nothing but a glass of water.

“Are you sure? Nothing but water?” Sisky asked from across the table.

“I still feel nauseous,” William said, handing his menu to the waitress.

The rest of his band stared at him dubiously.

“I _am_ still sick,” he insisted. But they knew he hadn’t eaten yesterday, either, and they were still chalking it up to a possible eating disorder relapse. William didn’t have the energy to deny what he knew they were thinking.

While they waited for the food to come, the table was silent. Nobody was talking to each other, and if someone had something to say to someone, they’d just text it under the table. Finally, Gabe broke the silence by asking, “So, William… how have you been feeling since last night?”

“ _Like shit._ ” William’s voice was flat and monotone, sounding just as dead as he appeared. “What else did you expect?”

Gabe, thinking he had annoyed him, hesitated before he commented, “Food poisoning is a bitch, right?”

William’s band’s eyes snapped up at hearing that. “Food poisoning?” Sisky scoffed. “He didn’t even eat yesterday.”

Gabe turned toward William, who was gazing into his water glass. “Really? I could have sworn you told me it was food poisoning.”

“Can we talk about literally anything else?” William mumbled, pushing the napkin with his silverware wrapped in it with his thumb. The tip of the fork in the napkin kept clattering against Gabe’s glass of orange juice. “ _Anything_ else? We’ve already established I’m sick.”

“So…” Nate started with a tentative smile, “Tonight’s a hotel night, right?”

William somehow got better enough by the time they arrived at the venue to convince everyone he was well enough to perform, and so the show went just as normal as the previous day; Gabe and William annoyed the hell out each other during Snakes while still making fangirls scream, and William was just as unrestrained and running around wildly during his own band’s set. Except that night William downed more than several water bottles, which was pretty unusual, but there wasn’t anything more spectacular than that.

Both bands somehow ended up in Ryland and Alex’s hotel room, because they were drinking and they could mostly bear each other when they were drunk. So that meant Gabe and William were drunk in the same room, and Gabe was _definitely_ watching William for more suspicious behavior, but William’s alcohol-addled brain was mistaking that watching for something else, and disaster was bound to ensue.

William, very naturally made his way over to where Gabe was sitting on the bed, and he buried his nose in his neck without saying a word.

“Jeez, William,” Gabe said, tensing up at his touch. “We’re not on stage.”

“You smell _warm,_ ” he whispered against his skin, “What body wash have you been using?”

“I don’t know,” Gabe’s voice had an edge of defensiveness to it. “Does it really matter?”

“I’m just _curious,_ Gabanti, nothing wrong with that,” William said. He laid on Gabe’s shoulder for a little while longer before he grabbed Gabe’s hand and whined, “Walk me back to my room.”

“You can go there yourself.”

“I can’t, I’m drunk.”

“Ask one of your bandmates.”

“But I have to go now,” William insisted. “I’m _thirsty._ ”

“Do you want me to get you some tap water?”

“No. We need to go to my room,” He tugged at Gabe’s hand again. “Please, please, _please?_ If you go with me, I’ll tone down the Snakes performance tomorrow, I _promise._ ”

Gabe sighed and fervently prayed that William wouldn’t try to pull any funny business on him. Things like that were part of the reason they hated each other, one particular friendly gesture from Gabe that started out friendly but quickly soured. “Fine.”

He helped William out of the room with his arm around his waist to hold him steady. “Which direction is your room?”

William pointed to the right and Gabe helped him stumble down the hallway. William stopped him a few doors down and fumbled with getting the keycard for the room out of his pocket, which he dropped. Gabe had to pick up the keycard for him and slid it into the door with a click.

Gabe helped William into the room and closed the door behind them. “Are you still thirsty?”

“Mm, yeah,” William was laying flat on his back on the bed, hands folded over his stomach before he sat up and leaned on his elbows. “I have a water bottle in my bag. No, not that one-- yeah, that one, it should be at the top-- yeah, that.” Gabe handed the water bottle to him and sat at the foot of the bed as he watched William unscrew the cap and chug the entire bottle in less than a minute as if he hadn’t drank in days. When it was empty, William let it fall from his tight grip, looked straight at Gabe, and said, “I’m still thirsty.”

“Still?” Gabe asked. William nodded. “Are you sure you’re not still sick?”

“I’m sure,” William licked the wetness off his lips. “Completely sure.”

Gabe stifled an eye roll and reached for the empty water bottle. “I’ll get you some from the tap.”

William smiled with satisfaction and didn’t even utter a word of thanks. The bed creaked as Gabe stood up to walk to the bathroom and flick on the light switch. As he filled up the water bottle, crinkled from the way William had squeezed it for every last drop, he heard the soft sound of the bedsheets being adjusted. He hardly thought anything of it, assuming it was probably just William laying back down or plugging in his cell phone.

However, William stumbled into the bathroom behind Gabe and wrapped his arms tight around his waist while he filled the bottle.

“Uh…” Gabe’s eyes widened. “What are you doing?”

William didn’t say anything; he leaned into Gabe’s neck and licked a long stripe down it. “You taste nice,” he giggled. William ran his blunt teeth over the skin of his neck and left a kiss on his jaw, all while Gabe watched in the mirror in horror and had absolutely _no_ idea what to do. The water bottle was more than full by now and water overflowed over the brim of the bottle, cascading like a cold waterfall over Gabe’s hand and to the sink.

So naturally, to deal with the situation, Gabe threw the water bottle upward, soaking him and William with freezing cold water. The suddenness of it seemed to snap him out of whatever trance he’d been in; William, taken aback, shrieked and fell backward against the closet with a clatter. Trying to catch his footing, William yelled, “What the _hell?_ ”

“You licked my fucking neck!” Gabe accused, streaks of water dripping off his forehead.

William narrowed his eyes at his reflection and proclaimed, “I’m _drunk!_ ”

Gabe spun around and grabbed William by the collar of his wet shirt, yanking him forward and only an inch from his face. A distracting drop of water slid down William’s nose and fell to his bottom lip, but Gabe quickly looked back up to his eyes and demanded, “Just fucking tell me, are you on drugs? What the fuck is going on with you?”

“I don’t know!” William cried, “I don’t fucking know, but it’s not drugs! I’m just sick and drunk, okay?”

Gabe very much didn’t believe him, but he loosened his grip on William’s shirt. “What happened when you disappeared?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I think it’d really shed some light on the situation right now.”

“I really don’t think it would,” William snatched the fabric of his shirt back from Gabe’s hand and pushed him away by his shoulder, causing him to stumble back against the bathroom counter. “I’m going to bed, forget about the damn water. Get the fuck out of my room.”

“I was just trying to help, and you just--”

“I said,” William’s voice raised as he locked his eyes on Gabe’s bewildered face. “Get the _fuck_ out of my room.”

Gabe inhaled sharply. “Fine.” As he stormed out, he turned once to glare at William behind him, who only glared back at Gabe with a new, spine-chilling fire ablaze in his eyes.

The next night’s show went as planned until William collapsed the moment he got off stage, unsurprising to everyone since he’d seemed completely exhausted and weak and trembling by the end of his performance that now had come to be consistently theatric. He regained consciousness just seconds after he fainted, and Gabe watched as William insisted there was really no need to trouble the paramedics, that he was just tired and maybe needed something to eat. So someone ran out to get him fast food from the closest drive-thru, and that was that.

Then the bus pulled over in the middle of the night, _twice,_ for William to throw up. The first time, he ran out himself; the second time, he was accompanied by Sisky to hold his hair back and keep him from falling over himself as he staggered through the tall grass. Once William was helped back onto his bus the second time, they didn’t drive off right away. Instead, the TAI bus stayed parked there.

It had been twenty minutes when Gabe stood up and announced, “I’m going over there.”

“No offense, Gabe, but you’re the last thing William needs right now,” Vicky said.

“I just want to see what’s going on.”

The rest of Cobra Starship looked at each other and shrugged. They couldn’t really stop him, so the bus driver opened the doors for Gabe to climb out. He ran on his bare feet down the shoulder of the lone highway to The Academy Is… bus and knocked on their door, waiting in the cool night air as crickets chirped in the distance. “Hey, it’s Gabe, open the door!” he yelled out, pounding on the door again.

After a few seconds, the bus doors opened and Carden was waiting for him at the top of the steps. Gabe couldn’t tell whether it was his fear or lack of sleep that made him seem so jittery.

“What’s going on?” Gabe quietly asked, stepping onto the first step of the bus. He scraped off the tiny bits of gravel that had stuck to his foot against the floor.

“William’s gotten worse,” he whispered. A timely drawn-out whimper sounded out from the back of the bus. “He can’t sleep, and he keeps having to throw up, but then when Sisky went with him he just coughed up _blood,_ and now he’s really in pain. We might have to go to the nearest hospital, and we would have sooner, but he keeps refusing. And he keeps complaining he’s thirsty no matter what we give him.”

“Oh.” Gabe fell silent, eyes dropping to the stairs. For the first time in a while, he felt only sorrow for him. Even if William never failed to piss him off, Gabe would never have wished an illness of this graveness on him. “That’s… that’s really bad.”

“I don't know where it came from so suddenly. He’s young and healthy, and even though stuff does happen, this is like…. extreme.”

Gabe chewed on his bottom lip for a moment. “Thanks. I’ll… I’ll go back to my bus and update the others.”

Carden nodded solemnly. “No problem.”

Gabe turned, left the bus, and began to make his way back to his own when he heard shouting from behind him. “Wait! Gabe, come back! William wants to see you!”

“Huh?” Gabe turned back around and stopped in his tracks to see Carden was waving him back over. “He does?”

“Yeah,” Carden then muttered more quietly, “I’m just as surprised about it as you are.”

Gabe ran back to the bus and got on. He followed Carden to the back of the bus where the bunks were. The rest of the band was sitting on the other bunks and the floor, watching William, who was curled up in one of the bottom bunks, and still debating whether he needed to go to the hospital.

“William, Gabe’s here,” Carden said. William, shaking, propped himself up on his elbow and leaned over to see.

“I want to talk to him alone,” William said. His voice sounded hoarse, on the verge of a coughing fit with every word.

“But—”

“I said _alone._ ”

The band hesitated, but they eventually got up. As they left, Sisky told Gabe, “Call us if something happens.”

“I will,” Gabe promised. The door was shut, leaving him all alone with William. He sat down next to the bunk and peered in. William looked the same he did the morning they were at the diner, pale and dead, but far worse. His eyes were wide with fear. Gabe pitied him; even with their rivalry, he knew William was, right now, just a scared kid.

“I’m still thirsty.” William said.

“They mentioned that.”

“I feel like I’m dying,” he whispered, and added, “But I’m not.”

“William, look,” Gabe pleaded, “You _really_ should think about going to the hospital.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I’ll tell you why if you get in the bunk with me. I’ll explain everything, okay?”

Gabe normally would laugh and refuse, but at a time like this, he nodded with a serious look in his eyes and crawled into the bunk while William shifted to the side to make room for him. “So,” he said. “What’s up?”

“It does have to do with my disappearance,” William said. “You were right.”

Gabe’s breath caught for a second before he could eke out, “Oh.”

“And you’re, like, the _last_ pers—” A surge of pain ran through William, which caused him to dig his nails into his pillow, grit his teeth, and press his lips together tightly to keep from crying out as it stabbed through him. The agony subsided after a few seconds, allowing him to relax and continue, “You’re the last person I would tell about this, obviously, but you were the only one that connected the dots really, especially when I was acting weird in the hotel. So, you have to promise me you won’t tell _anyone,_ okay?”

“Well, what are we talking about here? If it’s hurting you, like drugs or something, then…”

“It’s not drugs. You just have to believe me, it’s something you _can’t_ tell anyone.”

“I promise.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

William reached his trembling hand up to tuck his hair behind his ear and push it aside, tilting his head to expose his neck. “Do you see it?”

Gabe let out a tiny gasp at seeing it; on William’s neck, there were two puncture wounds left by what had probably been fangs. “No way.”

“I heard something from outside the bus,” he explained. “When I went to go investigate it, someone attacked me. I woke up a few hours later in an alleyway near the venue. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m changing. Something’s different.”

“D...Do you think it could have been…” What Gabe was thinking felt ridiculous to suggest, but now was as good a time as any. “A _vampire?_ ”

“I think so,” William agreed quickly, making it clear that he’d already been suspecting the possibility himself. “But I… I didn’t want to think I was. It’d be ironic, considering Fall Out Boy’s music video and everything… but here I am. And…” He winced at another momentary shot of pain. “I’m really thirsty. I think that might be it.”

They stared at each other in silence until Gabe asked, “Do you... have fangs?”

William pursed his lips, as if ashamed to show them, and nodded.

“As long as you don’t think you’ll kill me, you can… _bite me?_ ”

“I wish I could refuse but, _fuck,_ I was hoping you’d say that, honestly. You’ve always had a nice neck. It’s one of your only redeeming qualities.”

“Uh…” Gabe suddenly became hyper-aware of how exposed his neck was to the cool air and William’s gaze. “Thank you?”

William leaned in closer to Gabe, admiring his neck, and said, “I’m going to bite you now. Don’t scream, okay?”

Gabe wasn’t exactly sure how he’d keep himself from screaming, but still said, “Okay, go ahead.”

William hardly wasted any time; he just _bit,_ sinking his fangs into Gabe’s skin. Blood quickly rose to the surface that he greedily sucked up. When it hit William’s tongue, the taste was _heavenly,_ and he moaned, grabbing Gabe’s shoulder to pull him closer and take even more. It was refreshing, red, _smooth,_ even comforting as it filled him with a warmness akin to how alcohol would.

Meanwhile, Gabe was really trying his best _not_ to scream, because _holy shit,_ that’d be a very natural reaction to your worst enemy very intimately _sucking your blood_ because apparently vampires existed now? So Gabe was really just trying to process the fact vampires _existed,_ William Beckett was a _vampire,_ and William Beckett was _drinking his blood._ Cool. Not really cool, actually, but Gabe had to pretend he was because otherwise he’d be completely panicking at the agonizing sting of fangs literally sunken into his neck, because William Beckett was literally a vampire. Cool.

But as William continued to drink, the pain of the bite slowly began to numb and a light, pleasant feeling of etherealness started to flow through Gabe’s veins. His tense muscles became less rigid and he could feel himself sinking into the mattress, succumbing to the overwhelming bliss. His fingers curled in the fabric of William’s shirt. “ _Dios,_ William,” he moaned. “That’s like, actually kinda nice.”

Eventually, William pulled his fangs out and licked the remaining blood from the bite. He ran his tongue over the wound several times, making sure he got all of the blood before it could dry and leave a sticky patch.

“The pain is gone,” William realized. A grin grew on his face as he repeated, “It’s _gone!_ ” and for the first genuine time in a while, he told Gabe, “Thank you!” and wrapped his arms around his shoulders to hug him.

Gabe tensed up at the sudden hug, but relaxed into it after a second. He hoped the blood-drinking wouldn’t become a normal thing, or he’d _really_ have to learn to deal with William. “It’s no problem?”

“Let’s get out and show everyone I’m fine now so we can get going.”

“But… my neck?”

“Oh, yeah,” Now Gabe’s neck also had a bite mark on it, except it was much fresher and he didn’t have the long hair to cover it. William’s eyes raked over the bite as he thought and he eventually said, “Um… just hope nobody notices?”

“What a _great_ idea.”

“I don’t know what else. It would be weirder if I give you one of my scarves.”

“Can’t be weirder than anyone finding out you’re a vampire.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. I’ll get you one of my scarves,” They crawled out from the bunk. William pulled his suitcase out, unzipped it, and rummaged for a black-and-white striped scarf that he lifted out and looped around Gabe’s neck. Once William was sure the bite was completely hidden, they both stood up and opened the door to the front of the bus.

“Miraculously, I’m feeling great now!” William announced. “So we can get going.”

The band’s jaws dropped in shock. Most of the color had returned to William’s cheeks, his posture was straight and unwavering, and he carried himself like he had just awoke from an extremely reinvigorating nap rather than having just suffered immense pain for hours.

“ _Already?_ ” Chizzy scoffed.

“There’s no _way!_ ” Sisky gasped, mouth hung open as he struggled with words. “You… you were just…”

William smiled and shrugged. “I guess it just passed. I could sleep like a log now. So let’s get going so poor Gabe can go back to his bus and get some rest before tomorrow’s show, right?”

At the mention of his name Gabe suddenly felt the pressure of everyone’s eyes boring into him, especially on William’s scarf around his neck. If it was possible for anyone to be the more suspicious of the two, it was definitely Gabe.

“What’d you do?” Carden asked, eyebrows furrowed at him.

Gabe opened his mouth even though he had no idea how to answer, but luckily William spoke first and lied, “He just said some Jewish prayers and I guess it worked. End of story.”

Nobody seemed to believe that, but they were tired and just relieved William seemed to be back to the spitting image of youthful health, so for now they shrugged it off. Gabe politely said good night, to which everyone else felt obligated to awkwardly say good night back to since he did somehow cure William, and he ran back to his bus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> welp, William's a vampire now. I hope you liked this chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

Sometime in the early morning, they stopped at a travel stop to buy snacks. William didn’t seem very fond of the sun anymore; he was wearing sunglasses and kept his eyes on the ground as he speed-walked inside.

Gabe was contemplating which flavor of potato chips to purchase when William came up from behind him and said, “I have a proposition.”

“A proposition?” Gabe didn’t look away from the rack of chips and crossed his arms. “Sounds kinda shady when you put it that way.”

“Yeah, whatever,” William’s voice became hushed. “Look, you’re still the only one who knows about… my condition, and that’s the way it’s gonna stay. I’m going to need some way to… _eat_ whenever I start getting thirsty again. Just for the tour.”

“I don’t want to be wearing a scarf for the entire tour,” Gabe grabbed a few bags of plainly-salted potato chips. “It’s hard to find outfits that work with scarves,” he lied, as if half his wardrobe he’d brought with him didn’t already consist of scarves. “I didn’t pack for this.”

“Well, you can’t just expect me to starve.”

“Just seduce a fan and there you go, dinner. I’m sure they’d be more than happy to have the _spectacular_ William Beckett drinking their blood.”

“I can’t just do that! Unlike you, I actually _love_ my fans, and I actually care about my band’s reputation. Vampirism doesn’t exactly fit with my image.”

“It sure did in that music video.”

“Look, man, my options are limited. I never asked for this, just help me out whenever I start getting thirsty again, please?”

“Seems like the kind of thing you’d ask for. You could write a whole depressing oh-woe-is-me kind of album about it. Pete and the rest of Decaydance would go batshit for it.”

“I’m _serious,_ ” William leaned over, placing his hand on the chip rack and getting a little too close that his cold breath on Gabe’s ear made him flinch. “Please, just help me out. I’ll even pay for your snacks. And I’ll find some other way to compensate you. All you have to do is sit there while I drink and deal with wearing a scarf. It’s only for the rest of the tour and then I’ll leave you alone and find another way.”

Gabe sighed. “Okay, _fine,_ I’ll help you out,” And he grabbed another bag of potato chips, because he might as well if William was paying for it.

“Great,” William removed his hand from the chip rack, but instead of leaning away, he whispered into his ear from behind him, “Can’t wait to hear you moan my name again.”

Gabe spun around and pelted him with his potato chip bags. William caught all of them with ease and chuckled.

Gabe was confronted by Carden as soon as he got off stage. “You did _something._ ”

Gabe adjusted the blue-and-white checkered scarf around his neck, hoping it hadn’t slipped. “What do you mean?”

“A jar of guitar picks spilled.”

“So?” So far, Gabe wasn’t sure what this had to do with him, but he always knew the rest of The Academy Is… was just as absurd as William, especially if Carden was about to blame him for a jar falling while Gabe was on stage.

“We had to literally _drag_ William away from counting all of them. He started crying when we wouldn’t let him.”

“I don’t see what this has to do with me,” Gabe tried to take a step forward to walk past him, but Carden stepped to the side to block him. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at Gabe, expecting an answer.

“What is going _on?_ ”

“It’s not even my problem! Go ask William yourself if you’re so concerned.”

“All you fucking Cobra bitches care about is yourselves, huh?” Carden spat before he turned around and stormed away to get ready for his band’s own set. As Gabe stood there and tried to conceive a mental image of William Beckett crying because he couldn’t count spilled guitar picks, Ryland tapped his shoulder.

“What’d he want to talk to you about?”

Gabe turned to Ryland and quickly cleared his face of any sign of worry. “Nothing. He just wanted to blame something on me, like always.”

“Ugh, tell me about it.”

“So, you’re going on in _ten minutes,_ ” Gabe reconfirmed. “And you’re still crying because you can’t count the guitar picks?”

William let out a choked “Yeah,” as if it was something completely justifiable and hugged Gabe to sob into his shoulder. Gabe tensed up as soon as William fell onto him to cry; he wasn’t really sure how to comfort _him,_ of all people.

“Um,” Gabe awkwardly patted his back. “Anything I can do to make it better?”

William let go and leaned back, sitting back on his knees on the tattered leather dressing room couch. “I don’t know,” He sniffled, trying to wipe the tears off his cheeks with the palms of his hands.

Gabe sighed and looked around the room, gaze landing on a small bowl of candies across the room. “Would it help if you were able to count something?”

William’s eyes grew wide, flooded with anticipation. “Yes! Oh my gosh, please!”

Gabe stood up and retrieved the bowl of candies. He spilled half of it onto the coffee table and William was immediately fascinated. He leaned over the table, counting as he pushed each candy to the side with his finger. “One, two, three, four…”

Of all the things Gabe could have expected considering William was a vampire, it wasn’t this. But either way, William was able to get on stage without a sign he’d just been crying, so it was fine for now.

William dedicated one of the songs he played that night to Gabe. At first, it sounded nice, him dedicating it to his “good friend, Gabe from Cobra Starship,” Except the song he was dedicating was You Might Have Noticed, and Sisky kept waving at William to _knock it off_ while he was dedicating the song to Gabe, and William ignored Sisky and said somewhat saucily, “Gabanti _knows_ why I’m dedicating this particular song to him,” which garnered quite a bit of cheering from the audience.

So naturally everyone wanted to know what the hell William was talking about, and so Gabe had to contend with that.

“You two _have_ gotten awfully close lately,” Nate teased as they watched William sing from the side of the stage. He smirked and quirked his eyebrow suggestively at Gabe as he asked, “You’re _sure_ nothing’s going on?”

“Pretty sure.”

“You’ve been wearing a scarf since you went on their bus,” Vicky mentioned. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed.”

“It’s for fashion. Do you guys really think I’d let William _touch_ me? Nevertheless give me a hickey?”

All at the same time, the rest of Cobra Starship resoundingly answered, “Yeah,” “Yes,” “Yeah,” “Pretty much.”

Gabe rolled his eyes at them with a grimace and kept watching the performance.

“You know, there is an easy way to prove you’re not hooking up with him,” Ryland said, his eyes on the scarf. Gabe protectively adjusted the scarf and brought it up further.

“I'm _not_ hooking up with him. Fuck off.”

And then William looked directly to the side of the stage where they were watching and quickly smirked at Gabe while lifting up his shirt and singing, “ _Feel the pleasure, feel the pain,_ ” That didn’t really didn’t help either, also considering Gabe became visibly flustered the second it happened.

“‘Not hooking up with him’, my ass,” Alex said.

“Shut _up._ ”

Gabe wore his blue-and-white checkered scarf to bed. He lied he was too tired to take off his outfit to put on pajamas, but it was obvious nobody believed him in the slightest.

“Just show us the hickeys already and we’ll stop teasing you about it,” Ryland said as he squeezed past Gabe in the narrow space to get to his bunk.

Normally Gabe would and make sure to brag about it, too, but this was not a hickey. It was a full-on vampire bite on his neck, the two dots left by William’s fangs that were beginning to heal but still very much clear. He needed the scarf to stay on until there was absolutely no trace left. “Nah,” Gabe climbed into his bunk with his cell phone in hand and got comfy. “There’s nothing to show.”

“You’re no fun.”

In response, Gabe shut the curtain of his bunk and called out, “Good night!”

Now that he was in the privacy of his bunk, he loosened the scarf around his neck, feeling over the bite with his fingers as he texted William, _**u thirsty yet?**_

A minute later, William texted back, _**someone is eager ;)**_

_**just tell me** _

_**only a little, i think i can hold out until tmrw** _

_**hotel night, right?** _

_**yeah, my room or urs?** _

Gabe thought for a moment. He wasn’t sure who he would be sharing his hotel room with yet, so it would be more convenient if Gabe wasn’t the one who had to worry about convincing his bandmate to leave. _**ur room**_

Gabe could tell William was more than a “little” thirsty. William’s eyes prowled over him more than usual as they sang Snakes on a Plane, probably secretly deciding where else he’d rather bite him than his neck. His hands kept drifting to Gabe’s neck when they stood near each other, fingers dipping under the scarf as Gabe was shouting, “ _Come on, bring it!_ ”, carefully feeling over where his fangs had been earlier and hinting he was anticipating later.

As William was singing, “ _So kiss me goodbye,_ ” he didn’t move away from Gabe. Instead, he locked his eyes firmly on him as his lips formed the lyrics. It sent a chill down Gabe’s spine, but a warm kind of chill that really only confused Gabe’s feelings more. He almost had himself convinced this was _just_ a performance and nothing more, a simple song with William and nothing else, but now the recent development of William’s vampirism was really fucking with that idea. Gabe knew he was _supposed_ to hate him, because that’s just how things were between them, but here he was.

He just had to remind himself that William didn’t actually mean what he was singing. He didn’t _actually_ want to _kiss_ Gabe, because that would be ridiculous. William was only thirsty, maybe wanted to antagonize him in the process, and nothing more.

But for some reason, he couldn’t get the thought out of his head what it would be like to kiss William now that he was thinking about it, even though it was a thought Gabe knew he shouldn’t be entertaining, because he _hated_ William. He _hated_ him, he had to keep reminding himself.

Even so, on the way to the hotel, Gabe couldn’t help but wonder what William’s lips would feel like.

As soon as Gabe got the text from William telling him his room number, he nearly ran out of his own room and to William’s. Luckily, Ryland, who Gabe was sharing his hotel room with this time, was in the shower, so he couldn’t exactly question Gabe’s sudden disappearance.

Gabe came to a stop in front of William’s room and knocked on the door. While he waited in the narrow hallway, he nervously scraped his socks against the carpeting. Soon enough, there was a click and William opened the door, gazing upon Gabe with an unfiltered hungriness.

“Nice to see you,” William’s smile revealed the tip of one of his fangs. “Come in.”

Gabe entered the room as William cordially stood aside to let him in. The hotel room had both a small couch and bed, but the space on the couch was completely taken up by luggage. Whether it was purposeful or not, Gabe had no idea, but he just stood there, overthinking and wondering if he would accidentally be too suggestive by just sitting on the bed.

“Come on, take a seat,” William insisted. He sat down on the bed, legs crossed, and patted the space next to him.

Gabe slowly approached the bed and crawled onto it until he was next to William.

“You haven’t said anything,” William observed. His fingers yet again drifted up to Gabe’s scarf, playing with the fabric and winding it around his index finger. “What’s on your mind?”

“I guess I’m just nervous. Which is ridiculous, I know, since we’ve already done this before and it was fine.”

“No, it’s not ridiculous at all,” William said. His eyes came up to meet Gabe’s. “I mean, you’re literally having your worst enemy’s teeth in your neck. Kinda fucked, right?”

“Yeah,” Gabe inhaled a deep, sharp breath through his nose in an attempt to calm his nerves.

William tugged the scarf off of Gabe’s neck and ran his fingers over the bite he had inflicted last time, admiring his handiwork. Gabe noticed his fingers were soft.

“Is there any way we could do it anywhere but my neck?” Gabe interrupted. “Everyone thinks I’m covering up a hickey.”

“Do they?” William’s voice had a hint of mischievousness to it.

“Yeah,” Gabe could feel his heart rate racing, his face heating up. He wondered if William could detect how fast his heart was going by the way his smile grew.

“I like that,” He then leaned in to whisper into Gabe’s ear, “I like the idea of them thinking you’re mine.”

“But they think we’re fucking, not… this.”

“And what’s so wrong with that?”

“I…” Gabe was at a loss for words. “I don’t know. We’re supposed to hate each other, aren’t we?”

“Still,” William lowered his lips to Gabe’s neck. He didn’t finish his sentence; instead, he took Gabe’s skin between his teeth with the intent to give him a real hickey. And Gabe didn’t stop him, since really, it was somewhat enjoyable in a way. William repeated the process across Gabe’s neck several times, moving his lips and biting and sucking lightly. He mostly focused his attention on the area where the bite was, which was still sore but would help to hide where his fangs had been. “There. _Now_ you have actual hickeys.”

Gabe reached up and felt over his neck, the skin of which was still slightly wet and slippery from William’s mouth. “They’re gonna hate you even more now, you know.”

“I don’t care,” William shrugged. “Now, back to business. Do you still want me not to bite your neck? Because then I guess I could bite your wrist or your leg.”

“My leg?” It sounded a lot less obvious than his neck, so Gabe was willing to give it a shot. “Where exactly?”

William swiftly laid his hand on Gabe’s inner thigh. “There’s always the femoral artery in your leg,” He’d clearly done his research, and that made Gabe wonder how much he really wanted to bite him in a place that could easily misconstrue his intentions as sexual. “But if that’s too much for you…” The way he was looking at Gabe, keeping his hand on the inside of his thigh, William seemed to be _challenging_ him.

“I can handle it if you can,” Gabe dared back with as brave a facade as he could.

William smirked, popping the button of Gabe’s jeans off. He leaned in an inch closer and hissed, “ _Prove it._ ”

Without breaking eye contact, Gabe unzipped his jeans. “Okay,” He leaned back on the bed, pushing his jeans down and kicking them off the bed. He raised his eyebrows at William cockily and said, “Go ahead.”

“Gladly,” William pushed Gabe’s legs apart and without hesitation, bit into his inner thigh. The minute the blood fell upon his tongue, he moaned, sucking harder at the bite. He opened his eyes as he drank to meet Gabe’s eyes and smile tauntingly as he took a deep gulp of warm blood that dribbled down his chin and onto Gabe’s leg.

Gabe couldn’t help but throw his head back and moan under his breath, “ _Shit,_ that’s actually kinda good,” William heard the moan and it only fueled him more to drink even deeper, drawing more blood up and enhancing the pleasurable feeling of lightness that was drifting through Gabe. William’s hand somehow drifted further up the outer side of Gabe’s leg, squeezing dangerously close to his ass.

But still, Gabe tried to tell himself this could still totally be platonic, even though he should have remembered his neck was covered in William’s hickeys. In reality, it was hard to ignore the fact the air was thick and muggy with sexual tension no matter how much Gabe would hate to admit it.

When William had drunk his fill, he lifted himself up from Gabe’s leg, mouth dripping crimson. “You wanna taste?”

“The _blood?_ ”

William nodded. Gabe was pretty sure blood wasn’t kosher, but since it was his own blood, it probably wouldn’t be _that_ bad. Although William was implying he wanted to kiss him and Gabe shouldn’t have wanted that, he somehow still did. He knew that was probably shitty reasoning, but nonetheless, he agreed, “Sure.”

William adjusted his position, and _oh,_ now he was straddling Gabe’s hips, but Gabe didn’t even have time to process that because suddenly William was kissing him with his blood-coated lips.

And it wasn’t even that bad.

The tangy iron taste of blood overflowed onto Gabe’s tongue as they kissed, deeply and desperately and fangs not-so-accidentally piercing a tiny cut on his lips for more blood to suck at. William rolled his hips down against Gabe’s, and he could tell by the sharp intake of breath through Gabe’s nose and the hum in his throat that he was stifling a moan. William pried himself away from the kiss, opening his mouth to say something when the sound of the room door made both of them freeze in place.

Sisky walked in, seeing them in their very compromising position. “Fuck, you guys are--”

William quickly threw himself off of Gabe and wiped his spit-and-blood covered mouth with the back of his hand, while Gabe grabbed his jeans from the floor to cover up his bleeding leg before it could be noticed in the chaos. “It’s _not_ what it looks like!” William swore, hesitated since he had been savoring the last taste of blood on his tongue.

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Sisky said. He didn’t sound angry, only shocked as he stood there dumbfoundedly. “You guys are _hooking up?_ I mean, everyone has their needs, but with _each other?_ ”

Gabe hurried to pull his jeans back on before the bite on his leg could be noticed and hoped the blood wouldn’t soak through. William found his scarf for him and threw it to him, which he haphazardly wrapped to cover up the hickeys. “Good night!” Gabe choked out, fleeing the room before any more questions could be asked. Once he was in the hallway, Gabe realized he must have accidentally left his socks, but they were _socks,_ so it didn’t really matter. What mattered at the moment was the fact Sisky had walked in on him and William doing... well, even Gabe had no idea whatever the hell they were doing.

As soon as Gabe got back into his own room, Ryland, sitting on his bed and watching whichever movie happened to be playing on TV this late at night, innocently asked, “Where were you?”

“Nowhere.” Gabe rushed into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him. He turned on the shower and yanked the knob to the coldest possible temperature, because he couldn’t possibly allow himself to think about what the hell just happened.

As the bloody water pooled around the shower drain, however, Gabe couldn’t help but wonder how far he would have gone with William if they’d only been left to their own devices. Not that he wanted that, though. Maybe he did. No, he didn’t. Well...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, it's really too bad Sisky had to walk in on them... I hope you guys liked the chapter!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh hey look! another chapter where i torture y'all again! ;) enjoy!

The rumors spread quickly. By the time Gabe had dragged himself to the complimentary hotel breakfast buffet and sat down with the rest of Cobra Starship with his breakfast of a sad little bowl of fruit, they were looking at him weirdly. 

“So…” Alex said, poking at his half-eaten bagel and avoiding eye contact, “William, huh?”

It would probably be useless to deny at this point, but Gabe still sought to anyway and innocently asked, “What about him?”

“Sisky said he caught you two in quite a compromising position last night.”

“And you really believe him?”

“You _were_ gone from the room for a while,” Ryland brought up. “Look, Gabe, the evidence is stacked against you. You’re definitely hooking up with William.”

Gabe was silent and ate a grape.

“We’re not gonna judge you… but just… why _him?_ ” Vicky asked.

“I don’t know,” Gabe’s face suddenly became flustered. “I… I don’t know, it just happened. Can we leave it at that? I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You’re setting yourself up for disaster,” Ryland said, “You hate him. We all hate him and his band. He’s gonna start saying shit to everyone and like, leak what your kinks are or something.”

“He’s not going to do that,” Gabe was at least confident William wouldn’t do anything of the sort as long as he relied on him as a source of blood. “And if he does, I can blackmail him right back. I know what I’m doing.”

“In any case, it is _not_ a good idea to be hooking up with the lead singer of the band we’re touring with, whether it’s William Beckett or not,” Nate advised.

“I agree,” Alex said with a mouthful of bagel, and then added once he finished chewing, “I think you should end it while you still can before it gets messy.”

“That’s not really an option.”

“Well, he’s not forcing you to do it,” Ryland mentioned, and then realized, “Or _is_ he?”

“No, everything’s consensual! Look, I’m just trying to eat my breakfast. I’ll be smart about it, okay?”

The band all side-eyed each other skeptically. They clearly didn’t believe Gabe. They thought anyone who hooked up with William Beckett had to be, simply put, stupid.

Gabe was plenty used to interviews before concerts, but he was not used to being interviewed with _William._ He tried to get himself out of it, but the interviewer, some magazine recording it for their website, insisted they specifically wanted both of them to be in the same interview. The fangirls would _adore_ it.

They were giving the interview in one of the dressing rooms. William and Gabe were forced to sit on the same couch with each other while the interviewer got his own metal folding chair. Gabe kept anxiously adjusting his scarf, of which today he’d picked a plain black one that was very long and thus had an abundance of fabric to wrap around his neck. When Gabe adjusted his scarf for what was probably the fifth or sixth time, William jabbed him with his elbow and whispered, “ _Stop it,_ they’re about to start recording. It’ll look suspicious. You look fine.”

The interviewer sat down with his microphone and informed the two they were about to start recording. A few seconds later, when the person behind the camera gave them a thumbs up, the interviewer launched into his spiel of introducing himself as so-and-so from whatever music magazine, “here with…”

“Hi, I’m William Beckett from The Academy Is…”

“And I’m Gabe Saporta from Cobra Starship.”

“And I’m here to talk to them about their music and their tour together. How are you guys doing? Excited for the show tonight?”

“We’re doing great, we’re both definitely excited for tonight,” Gabe said, faking enthusiasm. In actuality, both his neck and his leg were sore and he just wanted to get the show over with already so he could crash in his bunk on the bus.

“So, first question: what do you think of each other’s most recent albums?”

Gabe had definitely listened to Santi when it had come out; he’d bought the CD and hate-listened to it, ready to criticize every little detail of it. Except Santi was actually _kinda decent,_ which Gabe refused to admit to himself, so he smashed the CD under his shoe with a sickening _crunch_ into a million shattered pieces and threw it in the trash. Then he’d texted the rest of Cobra Starship and said Santi was so bad they might as well not listen to it, and then the same day he went back to the store once he’d cooled down to buy another CD because for whatever reason he wanted to listen to it again. And again. And again. But not because he actually liked it, _no,_ he would _never._

“It’s... um…” Gabe could feel William’s eyes on him as he struggled to answer. “It’s a really good album. All of the songs really fit together well. My favorite song has to be…” he struggled to remember the tracklist and just said the song that was on the top of his head, “You Might Have Noticed,” only because he couldn’t get out of his head how William dedicated the song to him the other night. “The entire album is just as good, if not better than Almost Here. They crushed all expectations,” He knew his answer was shitty and not very musically-analytical, but at least it would probably be better than William’s. Gabe was confident William had probably never listened to the entirety of ¡Viva la Cobra!

However, William had, unbeknownst to Gabe, also hate-listened to ¡Viva la Cobra!, expecting it to be some shitty poppy sell-out album about sex and partying he could make fun of. Instead, he ended up putting it on repeat for a whole week. “I, uh, I think Cobra’s album, ¡Viva la Cobra!, is… really amazing. It’s great to dance to and Patrick Stump did an excellent job producing it. I think The City Is At War is my favorite on it, it really starts the album off strong and gets you excited to listen to the rest of the album.”

Even though it seemed like he was actually… complimenting it, Gabe hardly believed it his praise for a second. Gabe was _not_ going to let William get away with as good of an answer as that, so he added, “William loves it _so_ much, I caught him jacking off to it.”

William’s jaw dropped as his eyes incredulously widened. “I did _not!_ Gabe’s just joking.”

“Or am I?” Gabe suggestively smiled at the camera.

“ _Jesusfuckingchrist,_ ” William mumbled under his breath.

“Uh… well… I guess it is just that good of an album,” the interviewer then nervously laughed, clearly taken aback by Gabe’s remark and shrinking back in his seat before he flipped through his index cards and quickly moved onto the next question.

As soon as the interview had ended and Gabe and William were alone in the dressing room, William turned to Gabe and scolded, “You made him uncomfortable, you can’t just go around saying shit like that! People will start getting suspicious! My band already thinks we’re hooking up!”

“And mine does too!” Gabe relaxed into the couch, leaning his head against the wall as he said, “I was just kidding, take a fucking joke.”

“Who the hell just says _I caught him jerking off to my own fucking album?_ That makes you sound cocky as fuck, which you are, by the way.”

“Then I suppose it suits my personality.”

“If you’re so fucking obsessed with idea of me _masturbating_ while listening your damn album, maybe I will!”

“Then do it!” Gabe snapped, but as soon as he said it he could tell he made the mistake of not believing he was actually _serious._ By the way William gripped the couch cushions as he narrowed his eyes at Gabe with determination, maybe he actually _was_ serious.

“Okay,” That was all William said before his lips curved up in a mischievous smile. “I will.”

“You… you’re not _actually_ going to, are you?”

William moved a few inches closer on the couch to Gabe, eyes smoldering as they darted quickly from Gabe’s lips back to his eyes. “If you really insist on me getting off to your voice, I will.”

“I…” Gabe gaped. “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, you’re not saying no,” He leaned closer to Gabe and placed his hand underneath Gabe’s scarf, running his fingers over the patch of hickeys he had left. William whispered into his ear, “Admit it, you really want me to.”

Gabe considered it. On one hand, there was no way he could say yes. On the other hand... “I’m not stopping you.”

“I’ll text you tonight about how it was, then,” William said, and he got up and walked out of the room, leaving Gabe to wonder if that interaction _really_ just happened.

Gabe had nearly forgotten about what William had said by the end of the show, exhausted from all the singing and lack of blood. Oddly enough, his band members had already stopped bringing up William to him, which made it all the more easier to forget.

He was ready to fall asleep in his bunk, heavy eyelids weighing him down into sleep, when his cell phone that was squished under his arm vibrated and startled him awake. Gabe fumbled for his phone and saw he’d gotten a text from William. **_i did it_**

Gabe was far too tired to realize what that meant. **_did what?_**

**_jacked off to viva la cobra_ **

Once Gabe had read the text, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. The exhaustion that had weighed on him was quickly forgotten as he recalled the interview and William saying he would literally jack off to his album. Only one thought ran through his jumbled mind, and that was, _What the fuck?_

While Gabe’s fingers were frozen over the keypad, trying to decide how the hell he could possibly respond, his phone started to blast his ringtone because now William was _calling._ As to not wake the others on the bus, Gabe answered it.

“Hey.”

Gabe’s throat became dry. “Hi. Um… what’d you think of the album?”

“Better than the last time I listened to it, I guess,” William said, “I hope you don’t mind that I was thinking about you during it. I couldn’t help it, since it was your hot voice and all.”

“No,” His breath caught as he processed what William had said. He took a few seconds to be able to respond, “I don’t mind.”

“Good,” William’s smirk practically emanated through the phone with his tone. “Because, you know, I was thinking about the last time I drank your blood, about when I left hickeys all over your neck and bit your leg and kissed you. I just couldn’t _help_ it, you know?”

“Right,” Gabe reached down to the waistband of his pajama pants, pushing them off his hips. “I can’t blame you for that.”

“Exactly,” William said, “So, even though I should despise your album, it wasn’t that bad to jack off to. I could probably do it again, if I _had_ to.”

“That’s…” Gabe toyed with the waistband of his boxers. “Good to know, I guess?”

“Anyway, it got me thinking about the next time I get thirsty. Which at this rate, will probably be tomorrow or the day after. We should probably discuss our plans for that, shouldn’t we?”

“Yeah. We really should.”

“Since we’re not having a hotel night for a few days, I can sneak you into my bus when the other guys are out. Where do you want me to bite this time? Neck or your leg again?”

“Which do you prefer more?”

“Hmmm… I did like your leg last time.”

“Yeah, we can do that,” Gabe pushed down his boxers and felt over the spot on his thigh where William’s fangs had pierced his skin, leaving two bumps that had yet to heal. “Is it… going to be the same as last time?”

“What do you mean by that?” William asked, feigning innocence.

“You know, when you… kissed me.”

“Why? Do you want me to again?” William’s question seeped with sultriness. “I could totally pin you down and kiss you so the taste of blood lingers in your mouth for days if you want.” He paused and then added, “Maybe more than that.”

Gabe ceased feeling over the bite and slowly slid his hand up his half-hard dick, wrapping his hand around it and slowly starting to stroke up and down. “Like… like what?”

“Why don’t _you_ tell me?”

“I… I don’t know. You…” Gabe bit his lip and inhaled sharply as he sought to hold back a moan. “You tell me.”

“What was that?” William teased, although he knew fully well it was Gabe holding back a moan.

“I…” Gabe rolled onto his side to press his face against his pillow to stifle another moan. “ _Shit,_ ” his voice broke. “It’s nothing.”

“Are you touching yourself?”

“ _No!_ ” Suddenly, Gabe realized what he was doing. He was, quite literally, jerking off to William Beckett’s voice, and a wave of patheticism washed over him. He immediately removed his hand from his dick, gripping the mattress and trying to resist the urge to keep going. “Fuck, no. I’m fine,” He still couldn’t believe what had come over him, what had possessed him. Gabe Saporta felt defeated; he had really stooped _this_ low.

“You’re not fooling me,” William said. “It’s okay, though. If you are. It would only be fair, to get back at me for doing the same to your voice, right?”

All Gabe felt was utter, indescribable panic. He could neither confirm nor deny; instead, he was completely silent and useless.

“Gabe?” William asked, “Did you hear me? You still there?”

Gabe hung up. He didn’t trust himself anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone needs to tell Gabe and William not to be dumb idiots but like oh well. I hope you liked this chapter!


	5. Chapter 5

Someone had the genius idea of stopping for breakfast (again, thanks to Alex’s love for food) since their next city wasn’t as far-off as usual, which meant Gabe had to confront William about last night sooner than he thought he would. How would he even apologize for that? _Sorry, I hung up on you abruptly because I realized I was masturbating to your voice and I should hate you, but we’re cool, right?_ Any way it went, it would be awkward for sure.

This time, both the bands got separate booths at the restaurant. Gabe was about to be quite thankful for that since it meant he was able to avoid William for a little longer, but he’d barely had a second of relief when William approached the table.

“Good morning,” William greeted them sternly. He still hadn’t taken off his sunglasses, considering the diner’s windows flooded the establishment with light that felt near-blinding in his eyes. “Gabe, we need to talk.”

The rest of the band turned at Gabe, raising their eyebrows. Gabe still hadn’t looked up from his menu, trying to shrink under the scrutiny, but finally he said, “Okay.”

Nate got up to let Gabe get up from the booth, where he’d been sandwiched between him and Vicky. Nobody still said anything as Gabe stood up and followed William to the bathroom.

“I’m sorry about last night,” Gabe apologized as soon as they entered the bathroom. Out of habit, he started to lean on the sink since he was still tired, but then he realized he shouldn’t be touching a bathroom sink if he didn’t need to because ew, _germs,_ and quickly stood back up straight. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Are things going too fast for you? Are you even comfortable with this at _all?_ ” Even though the questions came from a place of concern, they sounded accusatory.

“Of course I’m comfortable with it! I would have tried to stop you a long time ago if I wasn’t.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I…” Gabe opened his mouth, expecting the answer to just be there, but it wasn’t. He wasn’t even sure of _what_ exactly was wrong. “I guess…” he trailed off again before he admitted, “I don’t know. I guess it’s like… I _shouldn’t_ like whatever the hell’s going on here, but I do, but you’re William and we’ve been at each other’s throats for literally a year now, and everything’s just complicated now and I don’t know what the fuck is going on!”

William nodded understandingly and suggested, “Maybe it’s time for us to grow the fuck up and not hate each other anymore.”

“Easier said than done,” Gabe sighed. “By this point, we’ve convinced both of our bands to despise each other. The hole we’ve dug for ourselves is pretty damn deep. My bandmates don’t think this is a good thing at all.”

“Mine neither. Mike spent a whole hour yesterday trying to tell me this was a bad idea,” William glanced to the side at Gabe’s reflection in the bathroom mirror, mostly focusing on the scarf. “Are you sure we’re not going too fast?”

“No.” Gabe said without hesitation, “And you?”

“The same,” William agreed, “I don’t want to keep the others waiting too long. How about we talk more when I drink later?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They didn’t exactly remember to talk later. As soon as William’s bandmates had left the bus and Gabe got the text to come over, it was very clear William wasn’t thinking about talking.

William was hungry, grabbing Gabe’s hips and pulling him close to rip his scarf off his neck. He pressed his nose into Gabe’s neck, licking over the hickeys and craving the warmth of the blood underneath. “Gabanti,” he whispered, and that was about all he said, since he was too busy thirstily staring at his neck.

“You can bite, you know.”

“No,” William managed to pull himself back from Gabe’s neck and insisted, “Your leg.” He snatched Gabe’s hand and turned around, leading him hurriedly to the bunks. He pushed Gabe into his bunk and crawled over him into the cramped space, pushing his legs away so William would have room to sit at the end of the bunk. He made quick work of reaching over and undoing the zipper of Gabe’s jeans, tugging them off his legs and throwing them to the side. Once that was done, William leaned down and lightly traced his finger over the previous bite he’d left last time before he bit in.

However, he bit quickly and perhaps tore his fangs in too deep and roughly, causing Gabe’s back to arch up as he pounded the wall with his fist and tried to keep his foot grounded on the mattress. “Ow! _Dios,_ William, that’s too fucking hard! Shit, shit, _shit!_ ”

William took his fangs out, mumbling, “Sorry,” as he couldn’t help but lick the bleeding. “Was it really that much more painful?”

“Yes, William, some of us are fucking human!” Gabe sat up and pulled his leg to his chest, tearing it away from William’s tongue. “My leg has been sore for _days_ and now this?”

“I’m sorry, let me see how bad it is,” Tentatively, Gabe extended his leg out again, displaying the bite to William. It was bleeding profusely, staining the bedsheets with a permeating red as it poured off his leg. “Shit, it’s bleeding a lot.”

“Crap, is it?” Gabe looked from William’s concerned and blood-speckled face to his leg, and shrank back at seeing the bleeding. “Oh, _fuck,_ that is a lot.”

“Hang on, I’ll get the first aid kit,” William left the bunk, cursing under his breath when he bumped his head against the top bunk, and ran to the front of the bus. He returned quickly with the first aid kit in hand, kneeled on the floor, and undid the latches of the kit. “Should I actually clean the wound or can I at least lick it?”

“I do _not_ trust you that close to my leg right now.”

“Fine,” William huffed, clearly frustrated the blood would be wasted. He ripped open a small packet and took out an antiseptic wipe, which he attempted to wipe the blood off with. However, it was a fruitless endeavor considering Gabe just kept bleeding and bleeding. Within a minute, the wipe was soaked through. “Could you just _stop_ bleeding?”

“I’m sorry, who was the one who fucking bit me?”

“I’m trying!”

William threw aside the wipe and grabbed another from the kit, but before he could tear it open, Gabe said, “I think you need to apply pressure first.”

“I thought cleaning it was first!”

“Well, I need to stop bleeding somehow! My dad’s a doctor, I know what I’m talking about.”

“Fuck, fine. What do I apply pressure with, then?”

“Hand me the kit,” William lifted up the kit for Gabe to look into, and he took out a gauze pad. “This. Press it against the bite.”

William ripped open the gauze pad and used it to apply pressure to the bite, watching as specks of red appeared faintly through the white gauze pad. “If this doesn’t stop soon, we’ll have to call someone.”

“Are you kidding?” Gabe demanded. “No fucking way are we calling anyone. People are going to ask what the hell happened, and then everyone will think I have a biting kink or something!”

“I mean,” William looked up at him and raised his eyebrows. “You _do_ sorta have a biting kink.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

After a few minutes had passed, William lifted up the gauze pad slowly. “I think it’s stopped,” He licked the bloody side of the gauze pad and wrinkled his nose at the taste. “ _Blegh,_ it just tastes like cloth.”

“That’s what you deserve.”

William frowned as he ripped open another antiseptic wipe to clean the remaining blood off of the bite. “You can’t blame me. Because of this whole thing,” Although his voice was tense, he still wiped off the dried blood gingerly as he continued, “I haven’t really gotten a proper drink. I’m sure I’ll get thirsty sooner.”

“That’s your own fault,” Gabe sighed as William ripped open one of the larger bandages in the kit and carefully placed it on his thigh. “You better hope I’m still up to being drank from after all _this_ shit.”

“I’m really, really sorry, I swear I’ll be more careful next time,” William promised as he smoothed over the bandage and sat back. “There you go.”

“ _Great,_ ” Gabe said with an air of sarcasm, swinging his leg over the bunk and leaning down to grab his jeans from the floor. Although he was exhausted from the blood loss and dealing with William, and his leg definitely felt more sore and aching than before, all he wanted right now was to get the hell off of William’s bus.

However, as Gabe stood up with the balled-up jeans in his hand, he suddenly became dizzy and wavered. William had to shoot up and grab his shoulder for support, as it seemed he was about to pass out any moment. Gabe quickly recovered and steadied himself. “I’m fine, I’m fine,” Gabe swore, straightening out his jeans and struggling to put them on. He ignored the sting of the bite as the denim brushed against it.

“You should rest,” William suggested. His hand was still lightly on Gabe’s shoulder in case he veered again. “I can get you water, and I think we have cookies somewhere.”

“I said, I’m _fine,_ ” Gabe insisted, “I can get a snack on my own bus. I just want to leave.”

“No, come on, you looked like you were just about to faint.”

“I stood up too quickly, that’s all. I’ll be fine,” After struggling to get a grip on the zipper of his jeans, he was finally able to pull it up. “My dad’s a doctor, I know what I’m doing.”

“At least let me walk you to your bus.”

“You still have blood on your chin,” Gabe pointed out. As William quickly reached up to wipe it off and lick it off of his finger, Gabe turned around and walked off the bus, calling out, “See ‘ya during Snakes!”

While in the dressing room brushing his hair, William mentioned, “We need to stop at a laundromat tomorrow.”

“Already?” Butcher asked, not bothering to glance up from his cell phone.

“I need to wash my bedsheets.”

That’s when the rest of the band all immediately looked up from what they were doing to stare at William.

“Holy shit, you fucked Gabe on the bus!” Sisky realized, shooting up from his seat on the couch to be eye-level with William, who was leaning against the wall across the room while he had been running the brush through his hair. “ _Seriously,_ you couldn’t have waited until a fucking hotel night?”

“I didn’t fuck him!” William defended. “Nothing happened! There was just… an accident.”

“What _kind_ of accident?” Carden skeptically asked, unsure if he even wanted to know.

William doubted he’d be able to hide the color of the bedsheets very well from them, so he pursed his lips and then admitted slowly, “A bleeding kind of accident…”

The rest of the band stared at him.

“Everything is fine now, though, obviously,” William tacked on. “I’d just rather not have to sleep on blood-stained sheets for very long.” Not because it would be gross, but the tangy smell of blood had only made him thirstier when he tried to scrub it out with a wet paper towel.

“Wait,” Sisky said. “Gabe has a _blood kink?_ ”

William looked up to the ceiling. He didn’t know any other possible way to explain it. Uncertainly, he eked out, “...Yes?”

“I knew it!” Carden held his hand out toward Sisky. “I knew Gabe was freaky. You owe me twenty bucks.”

Sisky sighed and fished a crumpled five dollar bill out of his pocket. “That’s all you get,” He turned to William. “Okay, I’ll ask if we can stop at a laundromat tomorrow, but holy shit, I am actually _really_ concerned by this development.”

“Well, we’re _not_ going to talk about it,” William hissed, perhaps a little too defensively. “Because none of this is anyone’s business.”

Nobody replied for a second, only suspiciously rolled their eyes or sighed.

“Oh, innocent William,” Carden said quite sarcastically. “If your bedsheets are literally stained with blood, I think it is.”

“I knew Gabe’s a piece of shit,” Sisky remarked, “I mean, first it starts with blood, what next?”

Suddenly, the hairbrush in William’s hand flew in the air and hit the wall behind the couch that Carden was sitting on and Sisky was standing in front of. The brush slammed against the red brick wall with a clatter, startling both boys and causing them to jump away as the brush fell.

“You don’t know _shit!_ ” William screamed before he stomped off to the bathroom.

For once, William seemed to have boundaries.

He didn’t so much as touch Gabe during their performance of Snakes of a Plane. Every time his hand strayed near Gabe out of habit, he snatched it back as if about to touch a hot pan.

Gabe was appreciative of this, of course, but he found himself longing for his touch even though they’d just been fighting about extreme bleeding a few hours before. When the song had finished, Gabe’s stomach was heavy as he watched William put down the microphone and leave the stage. It didn’t even feel done; his skin still anticipated William’s playful hugs and touches. It felt strange to continue the set without the closeness he had expected. Even though Gabe knew he had every right to be mad at him, he couldn’t help but regret it if it meant this loneliness that weighed on him so.

When Gabe entered his band’s dressing room, he lied down across the entire width of the couch and turned to face the wall. Everyone thought he was just tired until a sob broke from his mouth and he began to cry.

The band all looked at each other in an attempt to decide who would try comforting Gabe. Vicky took one for the team, walked over to the couch, and asked, “What did William do _this_ time?”

“N… nothing.”

“Gabe,” Vicky sat down at the edge of the couch and looked down at him. “We all noticed you guys weren’t being horny tonight. What the hell did he do?”

Gabe sniffled and sucked in a breath. His voice shook as he insisted, “ _Nothing._ ”

Vicky, unsure of what to say next, looked back up at the rest of the band, who all looked at each other again. Finally, Ryland said, “Gabe, we’ve talked and we think…”

He was interrupted by a knock at the dressing room door. From outside, William’s voice called out, “Can I talk to Gabe quickly?”

Gabe sat up and dragged himself off of the couch to the door. He didn’t notice the rest of Cobra Starship grimacing at each other quickly as his back was turned, all of them of the opinion William’s presence at the moment would be the opposite of helpful.

When Gabe swung open the door, he saw William, his eyes nervously staring down at the floor and his hands behind his back. He slowly lifted his hands from behind his back and held out a small bouquet of soft pink peonies and a small square-shaped box of chocolates tied with a ribbon. “I’m really sorry about earlier,” William said. His eyes lifted from the floor to gauge Gabe’s reaction.

Gabe’s tears ceased. The moment he saw the flowers and chocolate, he swore his heart had stopped for a moment. “Wow…” A grin slowly grew on his face. “For me?”

“Who else?”

Gabe took the peonies and the box of chocolates, and lifted the flowers to his nose to smell them. After savoring the sweet scent, he looked back up at William. “You didn’t have to. This is…”

“I bought them after what happened earlier. I felt awful. I hope you can forgive me eventually.”

“Of course I forgive you!” Gabe hugged the bouquet to his chest. If William wasn’t standing right in front of him, hugging the bouquet would have felt just as if he was hugging him. “Thank you so much. This is really, really so sweet!”

“I’m glad you like them. I’ve got to get on stage soon, but we’ll talk properly later, okay?”

“Yeah, sure.”

William leaned forward and pressed a kiss to Gabe’s cheek. Knowing Gabe’s band was watching the entire exchange at the door, William smirked at them for a moment as he lifted his lips away before pulling back, much to their chagrin. They all could tell there was something menacing in his smirk and his eyes, and the rest of Cobra Starship collectively held their breaths in uncertainty while they waited for William to leave.

“Good luck with your performance.”

“Thanks, I’ll see you later,” William took a tentative-seeming step away from the doorway, keeping his gaze on Gabe the whole time. As more of an afterthought, he looked at the rest of the band in the dressing room behind Gabe and had the audacity to quickly wave to them and add, “You guys did great tonight too, bye!” before hurrying off down the hall in the direction of the stage.

Gabe closed the door and turned around, lifting the peonies to his nose again and inhaling the aroma deeply with a serene smile. There wasn’t even a sign he’d been crying recently. The band stared at him, incredulous.

“So, what were you guys saying?” Gabe asked.

Ryland opened his mouth to say, but Alex quickly said, “It can wait until later.”

Gabe shrugged and put down the bouquet on the coffee table gently, then peeled the tape off of the box of chocolates. “Does anyone want chocolate?”

The room was awkwardly silent until nearly at the same time, everyone said some variation of “No.”

“Well, your guys’ loss, then.” Gabe popped one of the chocolates into his mouth and started to read the back of the top of the box for the flavors. Ignorant of the tension caused by William’s previous appearance, he asked, “Are you guys sure? There’s a white chocolate filling one in here and I don’t really feel like eating it.”

Vicky couldn’t handle it anymore. She shot up from the couch and snapped, “What happened to being so suspicious of him? Just a few days ago you hated him even more than us! How the hell are you guys suddenly fucking like nothing ever happened?”

“What, you guys have a problem with it now?”

“We’ve always had a problem with it,” Nate said.

“And what did he do, anyway, to have to buy you flowers and chocolate?” Vicky demanded, “You guys have only been at it for a few days and he’s already messed up? That’s not a good sign to me.”

With a mouthful of chocolate, Gabe said, “Shit happens, _grow up._ I’m not talking about this right now. Does anyone want the white chocolate or not?”

“You’re not taking us seriously,” Ryland said.

“We’re worried about you,” Alex said. “William’s got you wrapped around his finger. You follow him around everywhere like… like...”

“Like you’re his dog.”

“Exactly!”

Gabe rolled his eyes. “Need I remind you I’m an adult?”

“Being so close to him is only going to spell bad news for us.”

“Mhm,” He pretended not to listen, eating another piece of chocolate. “Well, I’m getting good chocolate out of it, so I think it’s a fine arrangement. So, like, you guys can get off my ass about it. If it goes too far, I’ll know, not you guys.”

“Then tell us what William had to apologize for,” Alex dared.

Gabe fell silent and finished chewing the piece of chocolate before he said, “It’s nobody’s business.”

“I’ll go ask him myself,” Vicky said.

“Nah, he won’t tell you shit. Adam, though, he probably will. He doesn’t seem to give a shit about privacy.”

“Well, I doubt he will know, either,” Gabe denied. He put down the half-eaten box of chocolates on the coffee table. “I’m gonna watch William perform and _not_ deal with all your angst right now. Bye.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re-reading this chapter made me start to crave valentine's day chocolate... so if I made you start wanting some too, sorry. Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for this chapter for accidental antisemitism (nothing super serious I think, don't worry I'm Jewish and know what I'm doing)

William didn’t want to admit he was still thirsty, but considering he’d only been able to drink a few drops of blood that day, the thirst had bounced back quickly in the middle of his performance. Although he supposed it was considerably good that he was able to go a few hours with such a small quantity, he wished it could have waited after the concert. His voice sounded unaffected and just as normal as he sang, but his throat started to feel drier and more painful every time he opened his mouth. Every breath he drew compressed and squeezed at him uncomfortably, only serving to emphasize the absence of any moisture. High notes suddenly required much more effort to hit and holding them was even more of a challenge, every second longer practically stabbing him in the back of his mouth with dryness.

As soon as William had put the microphone down and rushed off stage when it all was finally done, he could no longer hold back the growing ache in his throat. He burst into a fit of coughing, having to lean against a brick wall for support. Each cough forced itself out of him with dizzying strength; fuck, William was absolutely _parched._

His bandmates were quickly at his side, asking if he was okay. When William finished coughing, he adamantly insisted, “I need Gabe! Where’s Gabe?”

“Why the hell do you need him?” Carden asked, confused. Before William could answer, he launched into another fit of even harder coughing. All William could think about was _blood,_ how _red_ and _hot_ it was.

Fortunately, Gabe had been watching the set and was nearby. He’d been distracted by talking to a crew member, but as soon as he spotted William’s coughing from across the room he ran over. “William, you okay?”

Unable to speak, William shook his head. As soon as the coughs ceased, he could feel a grating at the back of his throat as he choked out, “I need _it._ ”

Gabe easily understood what he meant and grabbed his hand, yanking William away from the bandmates who surrounded him.

“What the fuck is going _on?_ ” one of the band members yelled, but the two were too concerned with hurrying away to discern exactly whose voice it was or even care about making an excuse. They wove through the crowd of people backstage. Gabe desperately hoped he was remembering the direction of his dressing room correctly and that his bandmates would already be on the bus.

Once they’d found his band’s dressing room door, Gabe flung it open and yanked William inside after him. There was only one other person in the dressing room, Vicky, whose head shot up from her cell phone at their sudden arrival.

“Get out!” Gabe yelled at her.

Although hesitant by the intrusion, Vicky slowly stood up. “What’s going on?” she asked, alarmed. “Is--”

“Just get out _now!_ ” William hoarsely shouted, followed right after by yet another fit of coughing.

Vicky quickly ran out, but not before demanding, “You better fucking tell us what the hell is going on later!” before she slammed the door behind her.

William was still coughing and Gabe guided him to the couch to sit down. He rubbed William’s shoulder, waiting patiently as his coughs slowly began to subside. The moment it ended, William took in a slowly drawn breath, the air bothersomely smoothing over the dryness in his throat. He glanced up at Gabe, a new diluted sort of hungriness igniting in his eyes, and his hand flew up to rip off Gabe’s scarf.

Gabe flinched as he tore off the scarf and threw it to the ground. Once it was off, William gazed upon his neck, still riddled with hickeys and the faint remnant of the bite from days before.

“I didn’t think I’d get thirsty this quickly.” It seemed like he had more to say than that by the way his lips were kept parted, but then he snatched Gabe forward by his shoulders and swiftly bit into his neck.

Gabe was about to complain, being he would have to wear a scarf for even longer now, but he figured he might as well put up with it since William had given him chocolate and flowers. As William drank, Gabe slowly leaned back until he was laying against the couch armrest. William leaned down with him, taking his fangs out for a quick second to climb over his legs before resuming. Although he gulped down the blood greedily, he definitely had taken care to bite gentler this time since the sting didn’t run as deep. Gabe found himself unable to hold back a soft moan, drifting away with the ecstasy of weightlessness as his veins grew lighter.

After William had drank for a prolonged period of time, he slowed his swallows, slipped his fangs out, and thoroughly licked off the blood that had dripped down Gabe’s neck. Once Gabe’s skin was clean of blood, he began to kiss his neck, sweet lips landing repeatedly near where he’d bitten.

William finished his attention towards his neck, satiated for now, and brought his head up to look into Gabe’s eyes, close enough their foreheads touched. William’s locks of hair fell around their faces like a curtain while they each savored the moment, eyes fluttering closed and their lips so achingly near each other.

And then William whispered, “I really wanna fuck you right now.”

Gabe’s eyes snapped open and he struggled for words as his cheeks burned. “I…”

Before he could get any discernible words out, they were interrupted by a sharp and persistent pounding at the door. “Gabe, William, are you guys still in there?” Vicky called in. “We gotta get going!”

William rolled off Gabe quickly and hurriedly wiped blood off his mouth and chin with the back of his hand. “Don’t come in!” Gabe yelled, jumping to his feet and scrambling on the floor for his scarf that had been hastily ripped off. “We’ll be out in a minute!”

Vicky had stormed down the hall. She couldn’t believe she let herself be pushed around like that, allowed herself to just walk out of the room instead of demanding Gabe explain everything when he burst in with no warning, with William coughing like he hadn’t just been singing a few minutes earlier. Vicky was so _tired_ of this Gabilliam bullshit already, and she knew the rest of her band was as well.

While lost in her train of thought, she accidentally bumped her shoulder against Sisky, causing him to drop his cell phone.

“Watch where you’re going!” he scolded, bending down to scoop up his cell phone as she stumbled back.

“ _Sorry._ ” She was about to roll her eyes at him as was her habit when running into a member of The Academy Is…, but she realized there was the chance Sisky might have some sort of answer to all of this recent… . weirdness. “Actually, I need to ask you something.”

Sisky sighed. “What?”

“What did William do to Gabe?”

“What William did to Gabe?” He crossed his arms, perplexedly gazing down the hall as he thought. Eventually, realization appeared in his face. “ _Oh,_ that’s what you mean! Okay, so William’s gonna hate me for telling you this, so don’t tell anyone. He didn’t specify, but he said there was some sort of bleeding accident with Gabe that caused him to get blood all over his sheets and so now we have to stop a laundromat tomorrow.”

“What the hell? William has a fucking blood kink?”

“No, I think it’s Gabe that does.”

“Gabe? No way. He _was_ crying about it after our set, so it has to be William’s fault, especially if William had to bring him fucking flowers and chocolate to apologize.”

“Well, William threw a hairbrush at the wall and got all defensive, so… actually, now I don’t know. But…” Sisky shook his head. “This is going to sound stupid, but since they’ve gotten together… haven’t they just been acting weird?”

“Yeah. They just kicked me out of our dressing room for absolutely no reason! And I haven’t seen Gabe take off his scarves even once. He even wears them to bed.”

“And Gabe just… I don’t know, when William was super sick and Gabe went in to talk to him, William just magically was better all of a sudden. And I barely see William eat anymore, and the other day he started crying because we wouldn’t let him count some spilled guitar picks.”

“He started _crying_ because you wouldn’t let him count _guitar picks?_ ”

“Apparently so,” Sisky said. “Look, I know we’re usually enemies and stuff, but them getting together so quickly after hating each other and acting so fucking weird… there’s gotta be something going on here, right?”

“Right,” Vicky agreed. “They’re both being so weird.”

“Look, I’m really concerned about William, and I’m sure you’re concerned about Gabe, so if anything else strange happens, could you let me know? I’ll do the same.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Great.” Sisky kindly smiled, although it took all of his strength to push aside his usual hatred of the band so it wouldn’t falter. “Nice talking to you… what’s your name? Veronica?”

“It’s Victoria.”

“Oh. You just always seemed like more of a Veronica to me.”

“Well, I’m not.” Vicky knew if she talked to Sisky for any longer, there was a chance she’d punch him, so she stepped back and abruptly ended the now-awkward conversation with a sharp, “Nice talking to you.”

“You too,” he said, although it came out as more of a sigh of relief than a sentence.

Vicky walked back to the dressing room, on the way being stopped by Sarti, who said they had to be on the buses in thirty minutes. When she reached the door, she pressed her ear to it and listened for a few moments. It was hard to hear, considering the hallway was full of people carrying equipment that clanged about noisily, but she swore she could hear Gabe’s light moaning. She lifted her ear away from the door, contemplating for a minute whether it was worth interrupting. She decided it was worth interrupting.

She pounded her fist against the door. “Gabe, William, are you guys _still_ in there? We gotta get going!”

“Don’t come in!” she heard Gabe yell, alongside the startled sounds of them scrambling off of the couch. “We’ll be out in a minute!” She didn’t even want to think about if they were dressed or not.

After a minute of waiting, Gabe flung open the door open with William behind him, long hair slightly tousled. As soon as Vicky saw them, she demanded, “Did William _seriously_ fake a cough so he could hook up with you?”

William took offense to her assumption. “I wasn’t faking it!” He tried to pretend to cough again, but it was a weak attempt.

Vicky only stared at him and muttered, “Unbelievable.”

As Vicky boarded the bus, Alex was cracking open the seal on a bottle of vodka as he asked, “Where’s Gabe?”

“Probably kissing his fucking boyfriend goodnight or something,” she said, flopping onto the couch. “Hand me the bottle.”

Alex handed her the bottle. Without recoiling, she brought the brim to her lips, tipped her head, and gulped down nearly a fourth of the bottle before wiping her mouth with her wrist and giving it back.

“They’re just so _weird,_ ” Vicky finally said. “I was just talking with Sisky about it.”

“Wait, Sisky?” Ryland wrinkled his nose with distaste at the mention of him while he held out a cup for Alex to pour vodka into. “You willingly talked to _him?_ ”

“You were the one who said he’d tell me what William had to apologize to Gabe for. And he did. Get this, William has a blood kink, and whatever he did with Gabe ended up completely ruining his bedsheets in his bunk.”

“Yikes,” Nate commented before he took a sip of vodka.

“Should we be worried?” Ryland asked.

Vicky shrugged and said, “Probably,” although she really didn’t sound like she did. She was already too tipsy to care. “Also, you guys will _never_ guess what he told me about William. He started crying because they wouldn’t let him count some spilled guitar picks! Isn’t that insane?”

Alex scoffed. “That’s so stupid.”

“It’s true.”

“If it is true, I wanna see it for myself,” Nate said. “That’d be fucking hilarious. Who the hell cries over that?”

“Or maybe Siska just wants us all to look like idiots.”

“I still wanna _try,_ ” Nate persisted. “Even if William like, just stares at it and is super fucking confused, it’ll still be funny to see the look on his face.”

The rest of the band looked around at each other. They didn’t seem to have any objections to it, so Vicky shrugged and said, “Go for it, I guess,” as she reached for the bottle of vodka again.

They’d just arrived at the next venue, and Gabe and William were sitting on some couch in the hallway. They were leaning against each other, Gabe playing with a strand of William’s hair, when Nate just so happened to pass by and threw down a handful of coins onto the floor in front of them. A variety of pennies, nickels, and dimes flew from his fist and rolled across the floor with a metallic clicking.

William, seeing the quantity of coins, immediately sat up straighter. He was drawn to them, but this time, he knew better than to give into his urge to count them. He feigned confusion and narrowed his eyes at Nate, who was waiting for either of them to react.

“Oops,” Nate said, cracking a smile. His acting was extremely half-hearted. “I guess I accidentally spilled some coins! Clumsy me.”

Gabe was _well_ aware he must have found out about William’s incident with the guitar picks. However, to protect William’s secret, Gabe knew he had to pretend to have no idea what was going on. He stared down at the coins with incredulity and before William could say anything, Gabe shot up and loomed over Nate, staring him right in the eyes as he asked, “Is this because I’m Jewish?”

The silly smile on Nate’s face faded and his mouth hung open. He definitely had not thought about the implications of jokingly dropping coins in front of someone who was Jewish. “Oh fuck, no, that’s not what I meant! I swear, holy crap… um… I know how bad this looks, but…”

William grimaced. “Not cool.” He was staring past them at the wall, doing everything in his willpower to not look at the coins.

“Yeah, it’s not really cool,” Gabe echoed, crossing his arms.

“I’ll pick them up right now, I am _so, so_ sorry.” Nate dropped to his knees and rushed to pick up the coins, each one jingling in his palm as he collected them hurriedly. “I swear, I did _not_ mean for it to seem like that. It… it was for something different…”

“Like what?”

Nate paused and opened his mouth to explain, but ended up frozen for a few seconds as he tried to think. “Well…” he started to explain, but quickly he gave up and resumed picking up the coins. “Actually, never mind, it’s stupid.”

“Is this how they always treat you, Gabe?” William bitterly remarked. He was still looking at the cinderblock wall. “Somehow, I’m really not surprised.”

“I swear,” Nate said. “I didn’t think it would look like this. It was for a completely different reason.”

“What was it?” Gabe asked. “Just tell me, I’m sure I’ll understand.”

“No, uh, it’s not really something I can explain without sounding like a complete fucking idiot.” Nate found himself letting out a nervous laugh as he picked up the last coin and stood up. Not only did he feel absolutely foolish for attempting what he hadn’t realized had been a silly rumor in the first place, but mortified it went the completely opposite way. Now Gabe thought Nate was probably either an antisemite or incredibly stupid. _Great._ “I’ll just leave now. Again, I am _so_ sorry.”

After Nate had raced away, Gabe fell back onto the couch and turned to look at William. “I’m impressed. You really held it together.”

“I’m impressed you went so far as to almost accuse your own bandmate of antisemitism to protect my secret,” William said. “You really went to that length for me. _Me,_ of all people.”

Gabe waved it off. “Oh, it’s no problem.”

“Well, you’ve gotta fulfill your new vampire kink somehow, right?”

“Hey!” Gabe grinned and lightly whacked at his arm. “That’s not completely true.”

“Well,” The corner of William’s lips lifted. “You didn’t say it isn’t _at all,_ so…”

“ _Sure,_ whatever you say.”

“Anyways, speaking of that...” The light smile fell from William’s mouth, replaced by his hidden nerves at what he was bringing up. “Remember what I said yesterday? We have a hotel night tomorrow, right?”

At first, Gabe couldn’t figure out what he was referring to and his expression was blank, until suddenly he recalled what William had said the other day in the dressing room about wanting to fuck him before they were interrupted. “Oh, yeah.” He swallowed back a sudden lump in his throat. He could feel his cheeks starting to burn. “That.”

“We don’t have to do anything if you do want to,” William rushed to clarify, “but if you did want to… since both of our bands think we’re fucking, I doubt they’d care _that_ much more if we shared a room.”

The idea sent Gabe’s heart racing. “I… I’ll think about it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Is that possible smut i'm hinting at next chapter?? o.o Anyways, hope you liked this chapter of everyone being disasters once more, everyone just keeps being disasters fyi lol.
> 
> Also, I'm moving into college next week, just letting you guys know that there's a possibility chapters could be posted a day late or two once in a while as I adjust but I'll still be posting weekly!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all know what time it is...

“Look, man, I’m still _really_ sorry about what happened earlier.”

“No, I totally forgive you. That’s not why I’m not sharing a room with you, it’s just that…” Gabe paused, staring down at the half-filled water bottle in his hand. He opened his mouth and said much quieter, “I might be sharing one with William?”

Gabe hoped he’d been hushed enough for the others around him not to hear, but there was a collective sigh from around the room. The sigh was hardly of surprise, more of a hiss of doubt.

“ _What?_ ”

“We heard from someone about William’s blood kink,” Alex said.

Gabe started to laugh nervously. “What the hell are you talking about? Who _told _you that?”__

__“Sisky said--” Vicky started, but she was cut off._ _

__“Well, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” Gabe nervously chuckled again and then raised his water bottle to his mouth, taking a long sip of water to hide the uneasiness in his ridiculous smile. He realized if Sisky had assumed that from the blood on the sheets, he had also probably been the one to tell them about William and the guitar picks, thus leading to Nate’s attempted prank with the coins. “Haven’t you guys considered he could just be lying because he doesn’t approve of me and William fucking either?”_ _

__Vicky shrugged. “I suppose.” They all did trust Gabe more than Sisky, that was for sure, but the fact Gabe seemed to suddenly be sleeping with his worst enemy without a thought to it didn’t help either._ _

__“See? He’s probably just lying.”_ _

__

__That night and the next night’s concerts passed without a hitch, although the performance of Snakes On a Plane definitely was loaded with more sexual tension. There were no further objections to William and Gabe sharing a room together, just a thick and awkward silence as the room keys were handed out._ _

__It was still quiet as they all packed into the hotel elevator, the crowdedness forcing Gabe and William to be squeezed next to each other. They exchanged glances with each other as someone pressed the button for the fourth floor. As a subtle form of solidarity, William switched his suitcase to his other side so he could take Gabe’s hand. Although William’s fingers were cold, they were nearly warming._ _

__The elevator chugged upward. Second, third, fourth. There was a ping as it halted and the doors slid open. A few words were exchanged as they filtered out, trying to discern which direction their rooms were, but still silent for the most part. Eventually, Gabe and William had to split off from most of the group as their room ended up being down another hall. Although nobody said anything, their hard stares could be felt until they were out of sight and Gabe realized it was because he was _still_ holding William’s hand._ _

__They came to the door of their hotel room and stopped. William slid the keycard into the door and it unlocked with a small beep. He held open the door for Gabe, letting him enter first._ _

__Once they had found the lightswitch and kicked off their shoes, they stood in the entryway of the hotel room, bags still in hand as they looked at each other._ _

__“We... we don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.” The slight tremble in William’s voice made him sound almost human for once. “If you’re tired or changed your mind, I understand.”_ _

__“I want to,” Gabe said, “I really, really want to. Like, I’ve been waiting for this all day.”_ _

__“Good.” William dropped his suitcase to the floor and leaned in, closing the gap between the two of them. Gabe’s bag fell to the floor as well as he reached up with both hands to cup his face as they kissed. It started out slow and sweet, and for once William’s lips tasted faintly of chapstick rather than the sharpness of blood. In it, there was something so raw, so affectionate and _human_ permeating the atmosphere._ _

__William’s hands moved up from Gabe’s hips and settled on his shoulders, pulling him in closer to deepen the kiss before loosening the scarf around his neck and beginning to pull it off. The scarf softly fell to the floor around their feet. William broke the kiss, his bottom lip glossy with spit, and smiled as he gazed into Gabe’s eyes for a second. His fingers began to trace the back of Gabe’s neck while he admired the recent bite and half-faded hickeys dotting his neck._ _

__“Can I bite your neck?” William asked. “Or... do you want to try your leg again?”_ _

__Suddenly, Gabe could think again and therefore thought too much in the span of a few milliseconds. Instead of answering, he blurted out, “What _are_ we?”_ _

__William’s eyes darted back from his neck. “What do you mean?”_ _

__“Like, if we do this, does this change things?” Gabe asked. “Are we gonna be friends with benefits? Dating? Is this just a tour thing like the blood drinking is?”_ _

__“We don’t need to put a label on it right away.”_ _

__“Right, but… shit, I _want_ this, but what if it makes everything too complex?”_ _

__“If it makes you feel any better, I think things already got too complex when I became a vampire and we still handled it,” William gently reassured him. “I think we’ll still be the same as before, except we’ll have had sex together. That’s all, really. We don’t need to overthink this.”_ _

__Gabe nodded. “Okay. I guess that probably makes sense. You’re just thirsty, aren’t you?”_ _

__“Maybe.” William smirked. “Okay, now you have to answer my question. Your neck or your leg?”_ _

__“Leg, as long as you don’t make me bleed profusely again.”_ _

__“I was hoping you’d say that.”_ _

__He kissed Gabe again for another minute until Gabe broke the kiss to ask, “Wait, so if you’re a vampire, are you stronger, too?”_ _

__William tilted his head and thought about it. “Maybe? I guess I can open jars easier. Why?”_ _

__“I wanna see if you can pick me up.” Gabe wrapped his arms around his neck. “And throw me on the bed. That’d be cool, right?”_ _

__“Sure, I can try.” William brought his hands down to the back of Gabe’s legs and lifted him up with ease as if he wasn’t a fully-grown 6’4” man._ _

__“Damn, you really are strong!” Gabe remarked, marvelling at his strength._ _

__“I guess so.” William grinned up at him, his stance still unwavering with Gabe in his arms. “Okay, but really, can I drop you on the bed now? We gotta get down to business.”_ _

__“Go ahead.”_ _

__William carried him to the bed and threw him down, disturbing the nearly-made sheets and causing the mattress to creak under Gabe’s sudden weight. William climbed over him onto the bed and sat over Gabe’s hips, asking, “How was that?”_ _

__“Hmm.. good enough,” he teased._ _

__“You bitch.” William giggled again. He leaned down and met Gabe’s lips. This time, the kiss was hungrier, more frenzied and desperate as William experimentally grinded down on Gabe below him. A moan rose out of Gabe’s throat. “Now,” William said, gently tugging away from the kiss. His hand traced from Gabe’s shoulder to the zipper of his jeans. “I hate to interrupt the kissing, but I really am thirsty.”_ _

__“Then just do it already.”_ _

__William smiled, biting down on his bottom lip with a fang for a second before unzipping Gabe’s jeans. Gabe lifted his hips so William could pull down his jeans to his ankles and throw them aside. William leaned down and took the skin of his exposed thigh between his teeth. He deeply inhaled the faint scent of blood that was running red hot below before sinking his fangs through Gabe’s leg. Gabe inhaled sharply at the sting, the breath becoming a cry of pleasure once he felt William start to suck and lick at the blood dripping from the bite._ _

__William’s hand fell to the side of Gabe’s leg as he drank, his grip tightening while he drank and gulped down his blood. The rough, dry thirst in the back of William’s throat was subdued, replaced only with only more lust as the entrancing taste caused him to crave more than simply blood._ _

__When he had drunk his fill, William lifted his mouth from Gabe’s leg after one last sultry lick of blood and moved back up to kiss him with his blood on his lips. The metallic taste of his own blood on Gabe’s tongue was still just as sweet, if not sweeter, knowing that this time they wouldn’t be interrupted before going further. William’s lips drifted down to Gabe’s neck, leaving fresh hickeys and pink-ish indentations of teeth and smears of blood there to replace the fading and smooth blues and yellows. The careful, prolonged attention to his neck caused Gabe to emit a series of moans and grind upward into William. When William was done with his neck, he let a piece of flesh from Gabe’s shoulder snap back from between his teeth and crawled off of him, saying, “I’ll get my lube from my suitcase, if that's okay with you.”_ _

__“Mm, sure.”_ _

__William unzipped a pocket of his suitcase and quickly found a bottle of lube, which he brought back over. Before getting back onto the bed, he shed all of his clothing and threw it to the floor, revealing his lean figure. Gabe threw off his own shirt and underwear as well._ _

__William kneeled between Gabe’s legs as he uncapped the lube, squeezed it onto his fingers, and asked, “You ever done this before?”_ _

__“Been fucked by a guy? No,” Gabe admitted. “Have you?”_ _

__“Nope. But if it’s not perfect, we have the rest of tour to do it. And whenever we see each other after tour, of course, if we still want to.” William held out his pointer finger and middle finger, both glistening and slick with lube. “Are you ready for me to stretch you?”_ _

__Gabe inhaled deeply through his nose and nodded, bracing himself for William’s cold fingers. “Yeah.”_ _

__William slowly slid his fingers into Gabe and made a scissoring motion with his two fingers, stretching him. Gabe winced, holding his breath. It wasn’t too terrible, though, so he said, “You can add a third finger if you want.”_ _

__“You’re sure?” William asked, doubtful seeing Gabe’s uncomfortable expression._ _

__“Yeah, I’m sure it’ll get better eventually.”_ _

__William obliged and added a third finger. He continued to stretch him, about to withdraw his fingers when he accidentally brushed against Gabe’s prostate. Gabe moaned as a wave of pleasure was sent through him, arching his back. William smirked and experimentally prodded at the spot again, which caused Gabe to moan again. “Is that it?”_ _

__“What the fuck does it look l--” Gabe was interrupted by William brushing against the spot again. “ _Dios,_ Bilvy, I need you to fuck me or I’m gonna cum already.”_ _

__“You sure?” he teased, pressing against his prostate again._ _

__“Very sure.”_ _

__“Alright.” William pulled out his fingers and positioned himself, lining up his cock with Gabe. “Tell me when you’re ready.”_ _

__“I’m ready _now,_ ” Gabe whined. “Seriously, I really need you. I _need_ to feel that again.”_ _

__“If you insist.”_ _

__William slowly started to push himself in. Before he could say anything once he was fully in, Gabe was quick to tell him, “You can start fucking me. As hard as you like, actually.”_ _

__“Right away? You’re sure?”_ _

__“You’re the one who always said my songs were all about how slutty I am,” Gabe remarked. “Seriously, I’m not kidding, _fuck me hard_ right now.”_ _

__“If you say so,” William said, a hint of mischief in the way he raised his eyebrows. He pulled his hips back and snapped them forward once to see how Gabe would react, aiming where he thought his prostate was if he was remembering correctly. He clearly hit the right spot, as Gabe cried out loudly, “ _Dios,_ yes, there!”_ _

__William smirked and thrust into him again harder, starting to build up a fast rhythm as he fucked him. Between inhales, he said, “Shit, Gabe... you look so fucking… so fucking sexy like this.”_ _

__He could still see blood dotting Gabe’s lips from their earlier kiss as Gabe kept moaning, moaning out his name like, “ _Ohmyg-d, William,_ fuck me _harder!_ ” He looked absolutely irresistible, coming apart underneath him like that, and William could hardly resist the urge to lean down and bite his neck. The immediate sting of the bite only caused Gabe to gasp out breathily, saying as William drank and kept roughly fucking him, “That feels so _good,_ I’m gonna cum.”_ _

__William licked a long stripe down his neck and then murmured into his ear, “Do it, cum for _me,_ baby.” With one last hard thrust, Gabe came. His mouth fell open, breathless and hardly able to utter a word as he slowly came down from the loftiness of an orgasm and back to reality. William didn’t last long after, getting in a few more thrusts before he came as well, riding out his orgasm as he sucked at the bite on Gabe’s neck a few lingering seconds._ _

__When he had finished, William pulled himself out of Gabe and flopped down next to him onto his back. He was hardly exhausted, given he was a vampire, while Gabe was still in the process of catching his breath. William rolled over, facing Gabe, and smiled. “So, was all the wait and the prolonged sexual tension worth it?”_ _

__“Mm…” Gabe pretended to think. When he came to a decision, he cockily raised his eyebrows at him. “ _Maybe._ ”_ _

__“You liar,” William said, leaning in a mere few centimeters from his lips. He cupped Gabe’s cheek and kissed him for as long as he could, Gabe’s tongue brushing against the tips of his fangs every so often._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys liked that smut cuz... because of the plot, there may not be anymore until later on in the fic. Oops. That's all I'll say.
> 
> Also I moved into my dorm this week! eeee. I start classes next week, so as I said last chapter, if I'm ever a few days late updating please understand :)


	8. Chapter 8

When Gabe dragged himself out of bed, his head was pounding and numb. “Bilvy, do you have any advil? I feel like shit.”

William spat out toothpaste into the sink, tinted with streaks of red as it washed away under the running faucet. “No, sorry. Are you feeling okay?”

“Yeah.” Gabe nodded, holding a hand to his head as he walked into the bathroom. “It’s starting to go away now.” In the mirror, the bite on his neck stood prominent, teeth marks of pink and red amongst the sea of fresh hickeys. The sharp pain in his head was fading, although his entire body still ached with weakness. He chalked it up to not having yet eaten breakfast.

“Are you sure?” William narrowed his eyes at Gabe’s reflection. “You don’t think I could have accidentally _turned_ you, right?”

“If you had, I’m sure I’d be miserable by now.” Gabe reassured him. He leaned forward against the bathroom counter, running his fingers through his greasy curls. “I’m gonna take a quick shower. Want to join me? You could use it.”

William quickly spat out the water he had been rinsing his mouth with, gaze on Gabe turning heady. “Oh, you _know_ I do.”

Although Gabe had gotten what he considered to be a good sleep, he still spent most of the bus ride to the next city napping. When he woke up, he still felt just as weak as he had that morning. And cold, odd considering it was summer and the temperature was more than decent.

Even though he understandably felt like shit and knew it was a possibility he was coming down with something, Gabe decided not to tell anyone about it and just suffer through the show anyway. Maybe it would fizzle away if he just ignored it.

However, it only worsened during the concert. During Guilty Pleasure, Gabe was screaming “Shut up!” when black, fuzzy dots started to appear in his vision. He tried to ignore it and kept singing, “Cause we won’t stop, and…”

His voice trailed off, the notes on his tongue disappearing into thin air. His grip loosened. The microphone dropped, landing with a loud thump that reverberated loudly and crackled through the venue before rolling off the stage. Gabe collapsed, eyes rolling back as his knees slammed on the floor.

While Gabe was being checked out by paramedics in the dressing room, accompanied by William and nobody else, the rest of the two bands all stood in the hallway anxiously. Every so often, they’d glance up at the opposing band on the other side of the hallway and stare daggers.

“I think we all know whose fault this is,” Alex finally mumbled under his breath, breaking the silence.

“Oh, don’t go blaming Bill for this!” Sisky fired back, “He had nothing to do with this!”

“ _Nothing to do with this?_ ” Ryland half-laughed. “You fucking idiot. All that shit on Gabe’s neck we saw when we took off his scarf didn’t just materialize there on its own.”

“William clearly isn’t the freak here,” Chizzy said. “Gabe was probably the one asking for that.”

“William clearly _is_ the freak,” Vicky accused.

“And how, exactly?” Butcher asked.

Vicky fell silent. “He… he just is. He’s been acting weirder than Gabe recently.”

“At least _your_ lead singer didn’t go missing for almost six hours and start acting fucking weird afterward,” Carden said. “Ever since he’s been hooking up with Gabe, he won’t _eat,_ he won’t stop _counting_ random shit, he refuses to take off his fucking _sunglasses_ outside…”

“The ‘counting random shit’ is a lie, actually,” Nate said, “I dropped a fuck ton of coins in front of William a few days ago and he didn’t do anything. In fact, it just made me look like a fucking idiot because Gabe was there and assumed I was doing it because he’s Jewish. So fucking _thanks_ for that tip. You’re just trying to make us look dumb.”

“It’s not a lie! I dropped a bag of M&Ms today on the bus and William was counting them as he picked them up off of the ground and fucking _hissed_ at me when I tried to tell him I could pick it all up myself!”

Ryland, Alex, Nate, and Vicky all glared at Carden doubtfully. “Yeah, sure. That totally happened.”

“I’m not kidding!” Carden was prepared to say plenty more, but Sisky laid his hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Okay, we can all go around blaming each other for all this all night, but none of us are actually going to figure out anything if we don’t cooperate, and we’re both worried about our own band members, aren’t we?” Sisky pointed out, attempting to be a mediator, “I swear, the M&M thing is not a lie and I witnessed it. I know we do hate each other’s bands, but if our lead singers are hooking up, we’re gonna have to learn to get along until they get it out of their system. We’ll never know anything if we keep blaming each other instead of actually trying to figure out what’s going on. Can we all do that?”

The rest of the bands all frowned down at their shoes before agreeing with a begrudging chorus of okays.

“Great,” Sisky said, forcing a smile, “Okay, so this all started after William went missing, which he refuses to talk about, right? Tonight, we’ll ask William what happened, and you guys can ask Gabe if he knows anything. At least one of us has to be successful, right?”

The members of Cobra Starship all looked at each other and shrugged silently. Finally, Ryland said, “Okay. We’ll try.”

Before anyone could get a chance to speak again, the door to the dressing room swung open, revealing William. “Gabe’s doing alright,” he said. “He just needs some rest.”

“Do you have any idea why he fainted?” Alex asked.

“No, sometimes these things just happen for no reason.” William leaned against the doorframe completely casually, and perhaps too innocently. “Which is what happened in this case.”

“And that’s what the paramedics said?” Nate asked. He crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at him.

“Yes,” William answered. “And Gabe will tell you that, too. Sometimes these things just happen. He just needs some rest. Which is perfect, since tomorrow’s an off day.”

At that moment, one of the paramedics who had been attending to Gabe pushed past William to exit the dressing room with her bulky bag of equipment. “He’s right,” she said monotonously, almost as if she was reciting it from the memory. The paramedic didn’t make eye contact with any of them, instead eerily entranced by the wall. “He will be fine. He just needs some rest. Sometimes these things just happen.”

Everyone stared wide-eyed at the paramedic as she turned around and walked down the hall without so much of a goodbye or further advice. The other paramedic she’d came with also left the dressing room and followed her, walking past everyone as if they weren’t even there.

“See?” William said, after everyone’s eyes had been glued to the paramedics walking away. He gave everyone a light smile that was all but reassuring. “Gabe will be fine.”

Once Gabe had been helped into his bunk on the tour bus, his arms slung over Nate and Vicky’s shoulders while Ryland and Alex followed close behind just in case, none of them left. Instead, they remained in the narrow corridor between the bunks, Alex taking a seat on the bottom bunk while the others stood around.

“What happened, Gabe?” Alex asked. “Was this really just a spur-of-the-moment kind of thing?”

“Yeah.” Gabe yanked his blanket up to cover his neck, which felt strangely naked without a scarf to cover all of William’s markings. “You guys really can chill, I just need some rest and I’ll be fine.”

In reality, it was a little more complicated than that. Gabe had fainted due to mild blood loss, a cause he wasn’t exactly surprised about. And when the paramedics had started to put two-and-two together considering the quite obvious bite on his neck, something took over, or more _possessed_ William.

Without so much as stuttering, in a smooth and persuasive voice William had stared directly at the paramedics and told them exactly what to believe had actually happened. They’d repeated it back to him, as if almost possessed, and a wicked smirk had grown on William’s face as he listened. Then William had snapped out of it, realizing what he had just done, and shrugged at Gabe innocently while the paramedics started to pack up all their things robotically.

“You’re sure?” Vicky asked. “Is there anything we can get you? Some water?”

“Yeah, some water would be good, thanks.”

Vicky quickly left and returned with a bottle of water that she handed to Gabe. As Gabe sat up on his elbow and sipped the water, Ryland mentioned, “You know, we’ve been really concerned about you lately. And William, too. Ever since he went missing, you both have been…”

“Not this _again._ ”

“We just want to know what’s going on,” Ryland said. “Maybe… if you know what happened when William went missing, that could clear some things up for us.”

“I have no idea,” Gabe said, distracted by screwing and unscrewing the cap of the water bottle over and over again. “I know as much as you guys do. William doesn’t even remember what happened, even if he wanted to tell me, he couldn’t.”

“Are you sure?”

Gabe looked up from the water bottle and looked Ryland in the eyes, sincerely saying, “Completely,” as if even he believed himself.

“Okay.” For the time being, Ryland seemed convinced enough that he knew nothing, at least about when William had gone missing. “Well, we’ll let you get some rest, then. You know you can always trust us, right?”

“Yeah. Really, thanks for the help. I couldn’t ask for a better band,” Gabe said, hoping the sentiment would get them off his back. However, as soon as they’d left, he immediately dug out his phone and texted William, _**i think my band might be onto us. they tried asking me what happened when you went missing**_

Meanwhile, after The Academy Is…‘s delayed set had finished, William barely had a second to look at his phone and see Gabe’s text since it was late and everyone was rushing to pack up to be back on schedule. Even so, it hardly came as a surprise to him that his band sat him down on the bus and told him they had to talk.

“We want to know what’s going on,” Sisky said, right before going on to list all the weird shit that had been going on. William’s whole obsession with counting, the blood kink, the going-missing-for-almost-6-hours affair, the time he’d thrown a hairbrush at the wall, the weird sickness and later coughing fit he’d had after a show that both oddly needed Gabe to cure, the hiss at Carden, the paramedics acting like zombies, etc. “You’ve been acting really strange lately and you won’t tell us anything! Your fucking boyfriend fainted on stage tonight! What do you have to say for yourself, huh?”

William leaned back against the couch and crossed his arms. “I don’t have anything to say about it. It’s just a lot of weird things that happened to happen too close together. Really, it’s all nothing.”

Butcher got up and grabbed a small snack bag of sunflower seeds from the kitchenette. In one swift motion, he tore it open and turned it over, dumping all of the contents onto the floor. William’s eyes widened at the sunflower seeds strewn around.

“Go ahead, Bill, _count it,_ ” Carden encouraged. “We won’t stop you this time.”

William turned away from the direction of the pile of sunflower seeds, digging his nails into the denim of his jeans. “I’m good.”

“What happened to you?” Sisky asked. He leaned across the narrow space of the bus, barely inches away from William’s face, containing an expression that did an awful job of hiding his terror. “What _happened_ when you went missing?”

“I wasn’t missing,” William lied. He involuntarily glanced down at the sunflower seeds and quickly looked back up. “I went for a nice, long walk and didn’t want to sound stupid when I got back.”

“Mhm.” Sisky hardly seemed convinced. “Look, man, if you can just explain what happened, we’ll lay off and understand. It’s as easy as that. We’re your _friends._ We’re a _band._ Trust is an important thing, and we’ve only gotten this far because we’ve trusted each other.”

“We’ve only gotten this far because teenage girls like skinny boys with long hair,” William awkwardly joked, cracking a nervous smile. Nobody reacted, all keeping their gravely-serious demeanor.

“William, please, just tell us. What’s going on?”

“You’re making this more complicated than this has to be,” William said. “There’s nothing going on. _Nothing._ ”

“You’re fidgeting just because there’s sunflower seeds on the ground,” Chizzy commented.

“I am _not,_ ” William protested, digging his nails deeper into his jeans. There was a faint _rip_ as he broke the fabric. “If I’m fidgeting, it’s because you all put me on the spot and started demanding to know what is going on when nothing is going on. Anyone would be anxious.”

“You hissed at me this morning,” Carden said.

“You’re being ridiculous! It wasn’t an actual hiss!”

“No, it was an actual hiss, like you were one of those weird girls in elementary school that pretended to be a cat all the time.”

William rolled his eyes.

“Don’t roll your eyes!” Sisky scolded, “This is serious! We’re worried about you. Can’t you just tell us what actually happened when you went missing?”

William pretended to consider it, then shook his head and nervously smiled again. “No.”

“We’re not going to bed until you tell us.”

“Actually, I am kinda tired, so can we actually stop at some point?” Butcher asked. “I know tomorrow’s an off day, but come on, drumming is exhausting.”

“He’s right,” William agreed, “He deserves sleep. We all deserve sleep after this stressful night.”

Under his breath, Chizzy muttered, “Every night’s been a stressful night since this shit.”

“Okay, fine, maybe we will go to bed at some point,” Sisky compromised, “but we can still stay up for a while until you talk, Bill.”

“I can stay up for a while,” William dared. A cocky grin grew on his face, and he sat up straighter. For William, at least, sleep was more of a luxury than a necessity considering his circumstances. “And it probably will be a while, because there isn’t anything to tell.”

Carden bristled at the sudden grin, but soon steeled himself to reply, “We’ll see about that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn their bandmates are starting to catch on... but considering there's ten more chapters of this fic, I doubt they'll have an easy time. I'm very excited to post the coming chapters, they're some fun shit ;) Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're wondering what the italics are for, it's because it's a flashback I guess lol. It's not the whole chapter though and it's pretty relevant, so if you're the sort of person who's iffy about that sort of stuff don't worry too much. Enjoy!

_Gabe and William’s hatred for each other began during the recording of the infamous song, Snakes On a Plane (Bring It!) (or Bring It! (Snakes On a Plane), if you really care that much). They were taking a break for lunch in the studio, and the producer had stepped out to take a call, leaving them just the two of them alone. When looking back on it, neither of them would remember the sexual tension sizzling between them, although Gabe had made it obvious by the way he watched William sing, entranced and lost in his voice, that there was some sort of budding attraction present._

_Gabe had finished his sandwich and grabbed his MP3 player out of his pocket, saying to William as he held it out to him, “I wanted your opinion on some Cobra Starship demos.”_

_“Of course.” William took the MP3 player and a pair of clunky, thick headphones from him. He was more than happy to hear them; William had always admired Gabe and his music, especially when he was in Midtown. So far, he was quite pleased with how Snakes was turning out and was optimistic for the demos. “Which song?”_

_Gabe looked down at the MP3 player and pointed to one titled The Church of Hot Addiction. “That one’s real good, I think.”_

_William pushed play. The guitar riff at the beginning had promise, but when the vocals began he found himself startled by Gabe’s sultry voice and the provocative lyrics. While he listened to it, Gabe watched his face carefully, anticipating William’s reaction._

_“So?” Gabe asked as soon as William started to take off the headphones. “What do you think?”_

_“Um.” William was still unsure what he thought. He reminded himself it was only a demo and still subject to change. “It’s certainly... different.”_

_“What kind of different, though?” Gabe pressed. “A good kind of different?_ Bad _different?”_

_William had looked down at the MP3 player and struggled for words. He was shocked at the difference. Sure, he didn’t expect Cobra Starship to sound exactly like Midtown’s music, but he never expected it to be so different, either. “I… I’m just not sure about it.”_

_“Oh.” Gabe’s heart sank. “What is it about it?”_

_“It’s just not what I expected. I didn’t think it would be so…”_

_“Sexy.”_

_“Yeah,” William agreed with a grimace while handing the MP3 player and headphones back. “Is that how the entire first album will sound?”_

_“Do you…” Gabe’s voice took on a tone of defensiveness, “...think there’s something wrong with it?” His fingers curled around the headphone wire, wrapping it around his thumb as he twisted it roughly._

_“It’s just…” William braced himself as he admitted, “It’s not really what I would expect from a former Midtown member.” The upturned corner of his mouth, an attempt to make his opinion seem not so brash, only made it look like he was contemptful instead of trying to smile._

_“Of course it’s not gonna sound just like Midtown! I have a completely different vision for this band, music that’ll be—”_

_“Music that’ll be played at parties for people to grind on each other to,” William finished. To Gabe’s ears, he made it sound as if it was something to be despised._

_“Not all of the songs are like that!”_

_“Then why did you show me the worst one?”_

_Gabe had been about to fire back but faltered, the words frozen on his tongue until he snapped and finally demanded, “You think it’s the_ worst _one? I’ve been doing music years longer than you and you already feel entitled enough to call it the worst one when you haven’t even heard any of the other songs?!”_

_“I’m just telling the truth!” While staring Gabe straight in the eyes, William sneered, “At least I can tell Cobra Starship will never be as good as Midtown. Your new music is shit.”_

_As soon as William had said it, he regretted it. He opened his mouth to apologize, but he was all too slow; Gabe spoke first. “Your band has released one album and you think you just know everything about music already, huh?” William tried to speak again even though he had no idea what to say, but Gabe continued, shooting up from the couch they sat on and pointing to the door. Considering his tall height, the way he loomed over William was intimidating on its own. “Get the hell out. I think we have enough for your part already.”_

_“But--”_

_“I said: Get. Out.”_

_William’s sorrowful expression quickly turned sour. “Fine.” He got up and marched to the door, calling out as he flung it open, “Enjoy your shitty sell-out band, fucker!”_

_They had waited for an apology from one another for days, waiting by the phone as they began to cool down. They both hoped something could be salvaged, at least a mutual respect if not friendship. However, it became apparent that neither of them would take the initiative to try to work things out and their hatred for each other started to rise, hot and boiling over the brim again._

_Pete was one of the many outside parties trying to make them get along again. He insisted Gabe let William be in the music video, insisted William agree to take part in it. Even so, a make-up couldn’t be forced; their resentment had been simmering for weeks._

_For a second, there seemed to be a faint glimmer of hope when they were being filmed for the music video, walking through the airport and carrying themselves with confidence as they both had to look at each other for a particular shot. They both dealt with it by secretly trying to channel the initial feelings they’d had for each other during recording, the awe and yearn that wasn’t what the look was supposed to convey initially but got them through it well enough. For a second, their harsh words were forgotten as they only recalled what had been building up before._

_It scared them._

_As soon as they were off camera, Gabe had turned to William and yelled, “Don’t you dare stare at me like that again, you prissy emo diva!” And so they had started bickering, only stopped when Travie and Maja had to intervene before it got worse._

_It was cemented: Gabe Saporta and William Beckett were enemies._

It had been at least an hour on the bus. No matter how many carefully-targeted questions were asked, William hardly revealed any new information. The exhaustion was starting to hit each and every one of the band members, except for William of course, and their attempts got weaker. Their questions became more of half-hearted guesses at what could possibly be going on.

“Cocaine?”

“No. Do you really think I’d willingly fuck up my nose like that?”

“Heroin?”

“ _Enough_ with the drug guesses.” William groaned. “You’re all getting nowhere.”

“There really is no other reasonable explanation,” Carden insisted. “You’d have to be on drugs to want to spend even a second around Gabe Saporta.”

“Christ.” William sighed, crossing his arms and staring up at the ceiling. “This is hopeless.”

“Ecstasy?” Chizzy guessed, ignoring his protest.

“That’s it with the drug guesses, seriously. I think I actually preferred when you guys were actually trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“So you admit there’s something going on?” Sisky seemed too weirdly excited, probably because he was tired and wanted some semblance of progress instead of feeling like they’d all wasted time.

“No. I meant it _theoretically._ Am I allowed to sleep yet or are you going to keep naming various illegal substances? I think it’d be way more obvious if I was on drugs.”

“It’s the only…” Sisky was cut off by a yawn. “...explanation.”

“Then maybe you guys suck at interrogation. I hope none of you ever become private investigators.”

“I can’t deal with this anymore.” Butcher stood up and started to make his way to the bunks. “I’m going to bed.”

“Me too.” Chizzy stretched out his arms, yawning before disappearing behind the door of the bunks with Butcher. “Good luck, I guess.”

Once they were out of sight, William turned from looking at the door back to Sisky and Carden. “You know,” William raised his eyebrows at them, “there’s no shame in giving up and going to bed.”

“I…” Sisky yet again yawned. “I’m good.”

“Cool,” William said. Although he raised his eyebrows at them, he still sounded bored and monotone. “Then find something better to do than guessing random drugs.”

“Yeah, then I’m going to bed, too.” Carden stood up and glanced down to apologetically shrug at Sisky. “What? I’m tired and I don’t know what else to guess other than drugs. Night.”

“Night,” William said back. Sisky didn’t say anything. That just left the two of them, sitting across from each other in silence on the bus as it swayed gently while it drove.

“If you tell me right now what’s going on,” Sisky’s voice took on a more hushed tone as he leaned forward. “I won’t tell the others. I swear. You can trust me, Bill. We’ve known each other for years.”

William shook his head and looked up at him. “Sorry,” he whispered. “You know I’ve told you before, there’s nothing to say.”

Sisky slowly nodded his head and leaned back, accepting that was probably as far as he would get tonight. He was about to get up when another question came to mind. “Wait, can I just ask you one thing? And can you answer it truthfully?”

“Depends on what you’re asking.”

“You and Gabe _despised_ each other before. You were insistent we shouldn’t go on tour with his band, you tried everything to stop it. I just want to know… _how_ did you both just forget everything that happened all of a sudden between you two enough to be doing… whatever the fuck you’re doing?”

William thought, choosing his words carefully. “I guess… he knew me better than I know myself.”

“That’s kinda vague. Any further commentary?”

William glanced away, appearing to be thinking again, and then said as he still looked at the floor, “Not really.”

“It’s not the whole truth, is it?”

William hesitated; that was all Sisky needed to confirm his suspicion.

“I’ll leave you alone for now,” Sisky said. He stood up, patted William’s shoulder, and smiled lightly. “Just stay out of danger, okay? Be careful.”

William didn’t even try to deny what he was doing, or what he was, was dangerous. He only said, “Sure, Sisky business.”

An off-day meant the opportunity to see some sights and rest, but what both bands mostly cared about was going clubbing and getting wasted.

“You can still drink, right?” Gabe yelled to William over the thundering music once both of their drinks had been set down on the bar.

“I guess we’re about to see,” William shouted back, taking his drink and downing a long gulp without caution. He let the taste sink in for a minute once he had lifted the glass from his lips and shrugged at Gabe, yelling back, “It’s bland, but not awful.”

“Speaking of drinking,” Gabe said, taking a sip of his drink. “What are we gonna do until you can drink from me again?” While calling each other earlier, after complaining about how annoying both of their bands had been about the incident, they had decided that it would be best to find an alternate source of blood until Gabe had recovered completely from his blood loss. The said alternate source of blood, however, was completely undecided. It wasn’t like they had the time to pull off an elaborate blood bank heist.

William took another gulp of his drink. “I have no idea.” He leaned closer to Gabe, placing his free hand on his hip. “Let’s not worry about it tonight, okay?”

Once they’d all drunk enough alcohol to get themselves more than tipsy, the two bands went onto the dancefloor. William and Gabe were dancing very close to each other, which was annoying enough to their bandmates that they were left alone. All the pair was thinking about was making it unbearable for the other until they could get back to their hotel room, which they were sharing again much to everyone’s dismay.

However, when William finally considered himself drunk enough to about to kiss Gabe without much of a care, his hungry staring was interrupted by a tap on his back. He spun around to see a girl, who in no way looked over 21, wearing heaps of black eyeshadow and a skintight lime-colored dress that accentuated her thin and exposed neck. As she took in William’s face, she appeared awe-struck, shocked before a grin took over her face.

“Are you William Beckett?” she yelled over the music, although it was obvious she already knew by the way she couldn’t keep still.

“Yeah.” William kindly smiled back at her, careful not to show his teeth. “That’s me.”

“And oh my gosh, you’re Gabe!” She practically jumped as she recognized Gabe too. “I’m seeing you guys’ show tomorrow! I’m _such_ a big fan!”

“Thank you, that means a lot,” Gabe told her. He was about to do the whole _“Fangs up!”_ thing and offer to take a low-quality cellphone picture with her, but William nudged him, shooting him a mischievous look with a slight raise of his eyebrows before he turned back to the girl.

“What’s your name?” William asked. He took a small step closer to her, pretending to let his gaze wander her body for a second even though only her thin neck was the only intriguing part.

“I’m Allison.”

“It’s lovely to meet you, Allison.” William reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his hand “accidentally” brushing against her as he lowered his arm. “Do you wanna go somewhere more quiet with me and Gabe? We’d love to get to know you.”

Allison’s eyes lit up and she eagerly squealed, “Yes!”

“Let’s go outside,” William suggested. “I could use some air.”

“Me too,” Gabe agreed.

While they both followed Allison to the nearest door, William flashed a confident smirk at Gabe. Usually Gabe would definitely have some doubts about the morality of something like this, but being intoxicated, he thought it was just as fun and harmless as William did.

Once they all were outside in the fresh night air, a faint aroma of lingering cigarette smoke in the breeze, William subtly guided them into an alleyway, citing, “It’ll be more _private,_ ” with a suggestive wink to Allison. Allison, being young and probably innocent, didn’t seem to have any doubts about why her idols would be trying to get her alone. They would have felt sorry for her, but William needed blood somehow and they couldn’t afford to be picky.

Once they were in the dim alleyway, William grabbed Allison by the shoulders, yanked her forward, and leaned into her neck. William could hear her heartbeat racing erratically and Gabe, from where he stood a few feet away, saw the faint smile in the way she gasped eagerly.

“You’ve got a lovely neck,” William said, breathing in the smell of all the blood rushing under her skin. He pushed her hair away from her shoulder, allowing him full access to her neck. “So nice.”

“Uh… thank you.” Her voice trembled, luckily out of an elated nervousness rather than suspicion.

As his lips brushed against the skin of her neck, William giggled as he whispered, “Don’t scream.” Before she could utter a word, William sunk his fangs into her neck and sucked at the blood that flooded to the surface from the broken flesh. Thick drops of blood rolled across her unmarred chest, staining her lime dress, as Allison was petrified and her mouth hung open silently without so much as a breath escaping. As William’s fangs dug deeper, a glisten of a tear could be seen gathering in her eyes in the darkness. She started to draw in a deep inhale and, realizing she was about to scream, Gabe hurried from where he was watching to cover her mouth.

Panicked as anyone would be, she let out a series of cries that were muffled by Gabe’s hand. She started to struggle in an attempt to escape William, but his grip was too strong and the blood loss only made her weaker. The eventual feeling of weightlessness and pleasure Gabe usually felt was clearly not going to set in for her.

When he was finished, William pulled back from her neck, his lips and chin stained with blood and a hungry look in his eyes resembling that of a predator. William licked his lips slowly, savoring the warm and thick ruby liquid that coated his tongue while admiring Allison’s delicate neck that was still trickling blood. She kept struggling to escape them, flailing her limbs against the grip William had on her and shaking her head to try to rid Gabe’s hand from over her mouth while still trying to scream. Allison was clearly _horrified,_ in complete disbelief two people she admired so much could do this to her.

William stared directly into her eyes and smoothly stated in the same tone he’d used on the paramedics, “You’re going to forget meeting me and Gabe. You came outside to get some air and were attacked by a dog. You’re going to go to the emergency room at the hospital down the street right now.”

Allison’s struggling slowly stilled as she was hypnotized and closed her mouth, which was great since Gabe didn’t exactly like how much spit and teeth-marks she’d gotten on his palm while she was trying to scream. Gabe slowly lifted his hand away from her mouth and as expected, she stayed silent and only nodded her head at William. She repeated back slowly, “I never met you and Gabe. I was attacked by a dog and I’m going to the emergency room.”

“Perfect.” William smirked. He released his grip on her shoulders, allowing her to take a step back and turn around. However, just as she was about to walk away, she passed out and crumpled to the ground, still bleeding from her neck. Both William and Gabe’s eyes widened and they looked at each other, unsure of what to do now. “Shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If your name happens to be Allison... I'm really sorry... I mean, still sounds like a fun experience to have your blood drank by William Beckett so?
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter!


	10. Chapter 10

William knelt down next to the unconscious girl and poked her arm. She was completely still, not stirring as William prodded at her again. The only sign of life about her was her shallow breathing and the continued pooling of blood into a puddle across the cement. “Yeah, she’s definitely out cold.”

“No shit!” Gabe cried. “What the hell are we gonna do? We can’t just let her bleed to death here!”

“We’ll have to bring her to the emergency room ourselves, I guess.” William easily hoisted Allison into his arms. “It’s dark, if anyone sees us they’ll think she’s just super drunk.”

“But what are we gonna do once we get to the emergency room?” Gabe demanded. “We can’t just waltz in there and be like, ‘Yeah, this girl was attacked by a dog’ while you’re covered in blood and expect them to let us leave. What if we’re recognized? Our careers will be _over_ if people think we did this. What if we go to _jail?”_

“Well, we can’t just let her die! I’ll just mind-control whoever is at the desk.”

“We don’t even know how many people will be there! And there’s still security cameras, either way we’ll be fucked.”

“We’re going anyway,” William cooly said. “We’ll decide what to do once we get there. Text the others and tell them we’re going to the hotel.”

“Fine.” Gabe reached for his pocket as they started walking, but soon realized the familiar weight of his cellphone was absent. “Fuck, I think I lost my cellphone!”

William sighed. “Well, that’s just great.” He lifted Allison higher in his arms momentarily so his pockets weren’t blocked. “Use mine, then.”

Gabe carefully leaned down and slid William’s cellphone out from his pocket as they walked. “What’s your password?”

“0-2-1-1-8-5.”

“Seriously? Isn’t that your birthday?”

“It’s easy!” William insisted, adjusting the way he held Allison so she wouldn’t bleed so much on his shirt. Her arm fell away and hung off William’s arm, so Gabe had to pick her arm up by the hand and gingerly fold it over her torso. “Text Sisky that we’re going back to the hotel early and to tell everyone else to keep an eye out for your phone.”

“Is that Gabe’s _phone?”_ Alex yelled over the music, snatching it easily from Sisky’s loose grip while he was distracted. “What the hell? How’d you get this?”

Sisky’s head shot up, realizing Alex had just taken the cellphone, and defended himself by protesting, “I had to take it!” His fingers were still momentarily shaped as they were around the phone before slamming his hands down on the table. “We could actually find out what’s going on if we look through it. Aren’t you worried, too?”

Alex hesitated to answer. He still held the cellphone out from when he’d taken it, not bothering to pull it more than a few inches away from Sisky’s hands.

“Exactly.” Sisky took the minimal response as a yes and pried Gabe’s cellphone back from Alex. “Look, once we’re done, you can just give it back to him and say he left it by accident. It’ll be _fine.”_

Alex sighed noticeably and sat down at the table next to Sisky. “Fine, let’s look.”

Sisky grinned at him. “Great.” He held out the phone to Alex, showing the lock screen. “Do you know his password?”

“Lemme try his birthday.” Alex took Gabe’s cellphone and entered 1-0-1-1-7-9. It was correct, presenting them with the cell phone’s menu. “It actually worked!”

“Hell yeah! Let’s look at his texts with Bill first.” As Alex scrolled through Gabe’s list of contacts, Sisky’s own cell phone buzzed with a text. Sisky dug his cell phone out of his pocket and a grin slowly started to appear on his face as he read the text William had sent. Sisky tilted his own cellphone in Alex’s direction, saying, “They left for the hotel already, those horny bastards can’t even catch us.”

Alex didn’t say anything, pausing once he had selected William’s contact. He turned from the screen to Sisky and asked doubtfully, one eye squinted at him, “Are you sure we should be doing this? What if we see something we’re gonna regret?”

“Knowing Gabe, we will, but that’s just the sacrifice we have to make.”

“Fine,” Alex huffed. “But if I can’t sleep because I see nudes, it’s on you.”

They began to scroll through Gabe’s texts to William. The earliest ones started out pretty normal and unsuspicious, about borrowing deodorant and Gabe reassuring William he’d recovered enough from fainting to go out clubbing. Then there was one from last night Gabe had sent, _**i think my band might be onto us. they tried asking me what happened when you went missing,**_ that hadn’t been replied to. After reading that text, Sisky banged the table with his fist and said, “I knew it! I knew there’s something going on! They’re… they’re _conspiring!”_

Alex rolled his eyes at Sisky’s drunken overexcitement and kept looking through the texts. Previous to that had been even more average texts, then an... interesting conversation from the day before their previous hotel night. It started out with Gabe texting, _**i decided i wanna share a hotel room w u ;)**_ William had texted back, _**gr8 i know its only been a few days but i miss sucking u :(((**_

“I don’t want to read more of this,” Alex protested, turning to face Sisky. “This is _so_ weird.”

“Just keep going,” Sisky egged on. Alex begrudgingly scrolled again. Gabe had replied to the text with, _**just be gentler than last time,**_ and William had responded, _**k but im thirstyyyyy 4 u**_

“Okay, I don’t want to read my bandmate’s texts about how much William loves sucking his dick anymore!” Alex exclaimed. “Don’t you realize how invasive and creepy this even is? If they find out we saw this shit, we’re so fucking screwed!”

“If you can’t deal with it, get another shot.” Sisky stole the cell phone from him. “We have to do this because we’re worried about them.”

“Is it really worth looking through this weird ass shit, though?”

“Yes! Do you want Gabe to faint again?”

“No, but he didn’t faint because of—”

“Right, but they totally bribed the paramedics to say the fainting was normal! They were not acting natural. Even if it has nothing to do with… _this,_ there’s still something going on!”

“I doubt it, paramedics can’t just be bought.”

“You’d be surprised.” Sisky dangled the phone by its corner with two fingers out toward him. “If you can’t look, I will.”

“Fine.” Alex groaned, taking the phone back. “I’ll keep looking.”

They started scrolling through the texts again in search of something more incriminating than the standard flirting and sexts, Sisky standing to get closer and lean over Alex’s shoulder intrusively to see them better. As they were mesmerized by the phone, they hardly noticed someone else approaching and leaning against their table.

“Hey, we’re thinking of getting another round of shots-- is that _Gabe’s phone?”_

Sisky and Alex’s eyes snapped up to see Nate standing in front of the table, waiting for their response. Alex was frozen with the phone in his hand, staring wide-eyed at Nate, while Sisky slowly leaned away from over his shoulder and shamefully sat back down. After an exchange of meek glares between the two, expecting the other to take the blame, Sisky pointed to Nate and said, “He stole it!”

“I did not!” Alex turned to Nate and gestured at Sisky with the phone. “He did! He’s lying! I was just trying to get it back from him!”

Nate didn’t have the patience to find out exactly what was going on. He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

Alex complied and handed it over, begging, “Don’t tell Gabe, _please.”_

Nate opened his mouth to probably say that wasn’t an option, but as he looked for the button to turn the cellphone off, he caught a glimpse of the screen. A certain word in a text grabbed his attention. Surprise slowly grew on his face as he read the text. Whatever it was, he was obviously shocked by it.

“What?” Sisky demanded, not caring whether his intrigue made him more suspicious. “What does it say?”

Nate turned off the phone and shoved it into his pocket. “Private.”

“Just don’t tell Gabe we saw, okay? _Please_ just tell him he lost his phone.”

“We’ll see.”

As Nate turned around and walked away, Sisky called out, “Wait, I still want more shots!”

“You idiot!” Alex’s head snapped to face him. “I can’t fucking believe you stole Gabe’s phone! If I get kicked out of the band it’s all your fault!”

Sisky shrugged and said, “You’re the one who agreed to look in the first place. I’ll buy you another shot, though, for the trouble.”

“Forget it.” Alex shot out of his seat, scowling as he told Sisky, “I think I’ve had _enough_ to drink for tonight,” before turning and leaving.

“What if we just leave her leaning against the wall and wait until someone sees her there?” William suggested. They’d been standing in the darkness on the sidewalk across the emergency room entrance, debating what the best course of action was. Allison wasn’t bleeding as much anymore, although they weren’t sure whether it meant she was healing or didn’t have much more of a blood supply to bleed out.

Gabe thought for a second and decided, “Probably flawed in some way.”

“I can’t think of anything else.”

Gabe couldn’t summon any other possible alternative to mind, finally sighing before he said, “Okay, I guess we’ll have to leave her there and hope for the best.”

They crossed the road and took care to avoid the windows as they approached the hospital building. William set her down carefully, propping her against the wall while Gabe’s eyes darted around in search of any passerby or security cameras that could catch them. Luckily, it seemed the streets were empty at this time of night and that the hospital wasn’t too concerned with investing in surveillance due to the lack of obvious cameras.

As William knelt in front of Allison, grimacing at her unconscious face and the dried blood that covered her neck, he whispered, “Sorry.” He stood up and turned to Gabe. “Let’s get back to the hotel before anyone sees.”

After entering from a side door to the hotel, hurrying up the stairs, and practically running down the hall to their room so nobody would see their blood-stained clothing, William and Gabe collapsed onto the bed on their backs, exhausted.

“I can’t believe that happened,” William said after they’d laid there for a few minutes in silence, “I could have _killed_ her.”

“I’m sure she’ll be okay.” Gabe turned onto his side to face William, lifting his hand to slowly caress his cheek. They hadn’t yet bothered to clean themselves off, so Gabe’s fingers were smeared with cooling and dried blood as he ran the tips of his fingers down his jaw. “You only did it because you had to.”

“What if she remembers?” William worried. “If anyone finds out, we are so, _so_ screwed.”

“She won’t.” Gabe pressed a kiss to his reddened lips to comfort him, staring him straight in his eyes as he whispered against his mouth, “Don’t worry about it. Even if she does, who’ll believe her? They’ll just think she’s obsessed with the 16 Candles video.”

William nodded slowly, pursing his lips. “I guess you’re right. I still feel awful, though. I shouldn’t have gotten so drunk to do that. I practically… I practically took _advantage_ of her.”

“You had to get blood somehow,” Gabe reassured him. He gave him another fleeting kiss, careful to keep his tongue away from wherever the sharp taste of blood permeated William’s mouth. “It isn’t your fault you’re a vampire. If you have to blame someone, blame whoever turned you.”

“It _is_ my fault.” William’s voice shook. A tear rolled down his cheek, leaving a clear streak through the blood that stained his skin. “I shouldn’t have gotten off the bus. I should have tried to fight back.”

“You didn’t know.” Gabe wrapped his arms around William, pulling him in close as he started to sob. “Don’t blame any of this on yourself.”

“You… you fainted because of… of me…”

“No, I fainted because I didn’t know my limits. Now I do, and it’s not gonna happen again. This isn’t your fault, okay? I love you, vampire or not.”

As soon as the words slipped from Gabe’s tongue, it dawned on both of them that it was the first time either of them had said the phrase, _I love you,_ to each other. William’s grasp around Gabe grew tighter as he mumbled into his neck, “I… I love you too.” before another sob broke from his throat.

What Nate had accidentally seen on Gabe’s phone when he had glanced at it was a late-night text that had read, _**if i didn’t lose so much blood last time you could totally go at it 2nite ;)**_ Since it was completely out of context, being the only one he had read, and Nate was drunk, he somehow assumed it was William who had sent it as his memory twisted itself whilst he dwelled on it.

The more he thought about it, the answer clicked in his head. He realized something was going on here, something much more impossible but had more evidence than mere drugs.

Nate came to the conclusion that Gabe was a vampire.

It seemed to make sense the more he thought about it, about how long Gabe had insisted on wearing a scarf to hide his neck, about his sudden relationship with William, about why William hadn’t tried to count the coins and Gabe freaked out about it instead on Nate, about why the paramedics were acting so weird because Gabe didn’t want to expose his secret, about the sudden blood kink and the bite that had been on his neck mostly obscured by unassuming hickeys. It was _more_ than reasonable to assume. In fact, William’s recent behavior probably had been to hide the truth Gabe was a vampire by distracting everyone with his absurd antics.

Although who really was the vampire should have been quite evident, then again, Nate was pretty intoxicated and couldn’t really recall or rationalize the whole thing about William going missing. It didn’t support the theory he already had developed. In his opinion, it was a very kick-ass theory he was proud of himself for thinking up, _thank you very much._

As Nate stood in the hotel elevator, Gabe’s cellphone weighed in his pocket heavily more so than it normally would. He debated whether he should tell Gabe he knew or not. Gabe probably did deserve to know, but he also probably would question how Nate found out and he was still quite apprehensive to reveal his cellphone had been stolen rather than left by accident.

Nate trudged to Gabe and William’s room and was still questioning what exactly to do as he rapped on the door. “It’s Nate,” he called out, taking the phone from his pocket and waving it slightly even though nobody else was there. “You, uh… left your cellphone at the club.”

It took barely a few seconds for Gabe to unlock and open the door. “Hey, you found my phone?” His face lit up when he saw it in Nate’s hand. “Awesome! Thanks for bringing it back, man.” 

As Gabe took the phone from him with a grin, Nate studied his teeth. They looked pretty normal, but Nate thought it could be possible he was hiding his fangs. When his eyes moved away from Gabe’s teeth, Nate noticed the small bloodstain on the corner of his shirt. “What’s that stain from?”

“Huh?” Gabe’s head shot up from his cellphone, which he’d been checking for new texts, and Nate pointed to the bloodstain on his shoulder. “Oh! That. Yeah…” His pause to think was noticeably uncharacteristic of his normally quick speech. “William, um, tripped on the way to the hospital… I mean, hotel! And he scraped his hand and started bleeding. That’s all, pretty much. Nothing to worry about. He’s fine now.”

Nate knew that was a total lie, but he just nodded. He knew he’d have to eventually accept what he thought was Gabe’s sudden switch from a diet of no absolutely no animal cruelty to solely blood, despite how uncomfortable he felt thinking about who the blood really was from. “Oh, okay. Glad he’s doing okay.”

“Yeah. Well, anyway, thanks so much for bringing this back.” Gabe seemed to be in a hurry to end the conversation as he closed the door slightly. “I seriously don’t know what I would have done if I lost it. Lots of important stuff on there.”

“Yeah, I’m sure it’d really… _suck_ if you lost it.” Nate hated himself as soon as he emphasized the word suck. He didn’t mean to, but it just slipped out. Gabe didn’t seem to notice anything peculiar about his wording.

“Yeah, really,” he rushed the words out. “Anyways, goodnight!” Gabe slammed the door shut on him quickly before Nate could even say goodnight back.

Even Nate’s internal dialogue was somewhat slurred as he drunkenly thought, _Yeah, he’s TOTALLY a vampire._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... at least Nate's somewhat on the right track, I guess we'll just have to see how this ends up!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapters a LONG one, at nearly 4000 words. Which I didn't realize until just now, when I'm trying to post it like an hour before my class. Ahhh. Anyways, hope you enjoy!

During a late brunch at the hotel restaurant since everyone was hungover and had slept in a few extra hours, Sarti told everyone that it probably wouldn’t be the smartest idea to go out and about before the show. Apparently, a few blocks away some girl had been attacked and bitten by crazed dogs and fainted from blood loss outside of an emergency room. As Gabe and William looked solemnly down at their plates while they listened, they didn’t notice Nate side-eying Gabe horrifically.

“Do you guys think,” Nate suggested, testing the waters, “that girl could have been attacked by a crazy person and not a dog? Stray dogs don’t just attack people out of the blue.”

“If she said it was dogs, it was probably dogs,” William said, pushing around the lack of food on his plate with his fork. Both he and Gabe had claimed earlier they were too hungover to eat. “It’d probably be obvious if it wasn’t a dog. Like, humans don’t just go around _biting_ people. That’d be pretty fucking ridiculous.”

“Right.” Nate looked straight at Gabe, who noticed the way he stared this time. “It would be pretty ridiculous, wouldn’t it?”

Gabe quickly looked back down at his plate. Nate’s look alone made him lose any semblance of an appetite he had. The guilt hadn’t diminished overnight. “I guess William’s got a point there.”

“It’s so scary to think about,” Vicky mentioned. She was as ignorant as everyone else was of the tension between the three as she cut her french toast. “It could have been any one of us that got attacked. And now they’re probably gonna put down the first poor, sweet, innocent stray dog they find! I really hope they don’t have to put down any dogs. It’d be so sad.”

“Didn’t you guys leave early last night?” Sisky asked, looking in Gabe and William’s direction. “You guys could have easily been the ones that got attacked. That’s gotta be crazy, right?”

“I wish it was us.” William sighed pitifully. “I feel so awful for that girl. At least me and Gabe had each other, she was completely alone to fight off that dog.”

“How do you _know_ she was alone?” Nate asked. The way he said it made it almost come off as an accusation.

“That’s what I’m assuming?” William innocently feigned confusion. “Nobody ever said anything about her having any friends with her.”

Carden snickered. “What, do you think _they_ did it?”

“No!” Nate protested. “Of course I don’t.”

William chuckled. “Don’t worry, we don’t _bite.”_

Irritation was evident in Nate’s voice as he insisted, “Don’t joke around about that.”

“Why? Does it bother you, Novarro?” William antagonized, tilting his head mockingly with a mischievous smile. “Are you trying to say you’re the one who attacked her? That seems to be the implication here.”

“No, jeez.” Nate groaned. “I’ll shut up about it, damn. Can we move onto something else?”

Even though they weren’t supposed to go outside of the hotel until it was time to leave for soundcheck, the two bands decided to go shopping at a nearby bookstore anyway to pick up something to read for the long hours on the bus. Since there were ten of them and there was safety in numbers, nobody was worried about any more supposed dog attacks and the fear they’d had earlier had already been forgotten.

When they walked into the bookstore, everyone immediately dispersed, mostly to the cafe. As Gabe looked across a shelf for any particularly interesting titles, savoring the fresh smell of new books, he heard Nate call out from behind him, “Hey, Gabe, look!”

Gabe turned around and saw Nate at a display of Twilight books, holding up a copy in Gabe’s direction as he pretended to read it. “Twilight is _such_ a good book. Have you ever read it, Gabe? It’s _so good.”_

Gabe pretended to be unamused. “Dude, you’re illiterate. Also, you’re holding it upside down.”

Nate glanced back down at the book, realized his mistake, and flusteredly fumbled to turn Twilight the right side up. Gabe quickly abandoned the shelf he had been perusing and instead searched for William, who he eventually found between two tall shelves of cookbooks and science fiction.

“Nate’s acting so weird,” Gabe said, distracting William from intently staring at the lavish chocolate lava cake in the gourmet baking cookbook he had flipped open. “He held up Twilight to me and was all like, _‘This is such a good book, Gabe, have you read it?’_ That kind of shit.”

William shut the thick cookbook in his hands with a thud that startled Gabe. Hushed but panicked, he asked, “Shit, you don’t think he _knows,_ does he? Like, knows _knows?”_

Gabe sucked in a sharp intake of breath. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I really hope not. But until we know for sure, we gotta play it cool, okay?”

William nodded. “Got it.” He looked down at the cookbook he held, sadly staring down at the cover that had a picture of a creamy cheesecake sprinkled with graham cracker crumbs, drizzled with melted chocolate, and adorned with sliced strawberries. “So then I guess yearning for pictures of food I wouldn’t even be able to eat would be considered suspicious?”

“Probably.”

“Well, there goes my afternoon plans,” William said, forcing a sad smile as he put the book back onto the shelf.

“Wait, if he was the one who returned my phone…” Gabe quickly took his phone out of his pocket and started to go through it. “You don’t think Nate would have looked at my phone, would he? Shit, I hope I don’t have anything bad on here! Do you remember anything we’ve texted that could have given it away?”

“I don’t think so? If there’s anything, it wouldn’t make sense out of context, right?” William asked. Gabe didn’t reply, too concerned with reading through old texts. _“Right?”_ William repeated, more nervously than the last.

“Nothing so far,” Gabe said, turning off his phone. “I think we’re good even if he did look at it. He’d have to go really, like really, far back to find anything. And I doubt he’d even make it past all our sexts.”

“Good,” William said. “Let’s just wait to see if he does anything else and _then_ question him once we’re sure something is up.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

To take their minds off of it, they started making out between the shelves of cookbooks and science fiction until Butcher walked past and cleared his throat loudly. They didn’t hear him the first or second time, so he had to gently whack them with a painting book.

_“Gaaabe,”_ Nate sing-songed, running to catch with him and William as they walked out of the bookstore, a few feet behind the rest of the group. He held out a plastic shopping bag to him. “I got you something!”

“Look, if it’s Twilight again, I don’t want it.”

“No, actually. Look.” Nate stuck out the bag to him, reaching past William who leaned back awkwardly. Gabe hesitantly took the bag and looked inside. Unimpressed, he took out the two books inside and read the titles. _“Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce._ What the hell is this for? And _Carmilla?_ What the hell is _Carmilla_ about?”

“I couldn’t find _Dracula,_ but it’s even better,” Nate insisted. “It’s about _lesbian_ vampires.”

Both Gabe and William briefly glanced at each other in sheer bewilderment. As Gabe hurried to shove the books back into the bag, William turned to Nate and demanded, “What are you trying to hint at here?”

Nate shrugged. “I just thought they’d be useful,” he answered innocently, although he was bad at hiding the smile creeping on his face.

Gabe roughly thrust the bag of books back at Nate. “Return these. I appreciate the thought, but I’m not gonna read them.”

“Actually,” William cut in, staring down into the bag. “The book about blood looked sorta interesting. I might read that.” He stole the book from the bag before Nate took it back and read the description intently, mumbling, “Do you guys think it might have pictures?”

Gabe ignored William’s question and glared at Nate. “Look, when we have a chance, we need to have a private talk.”

“Why? ‘Cause I figured it out?”

Gabe made sure the rest of their bands were still walking too far ahead to overhear and whispered, “Okay, yeah, maybe you actually _did_ figure it out.”

“I’m right?” Nate gasped. He excitedly pumped his fist in the air and leaped in his step. As he did, the bag he held hit William’s thigh and was hardly noticed since William was busy reading the first chapter of the blood book. _“Yes!_ I’m right!”

“Shut up until we’re actually alone!” Gabe scolded, his volume lower and more cautious. “And stop being so weird about it until then, okay? It might be hard to believe, but it’s not something you can just be so open about, okay?”

“You’ve got it,” Nate agreed, slowly nodding with a grin.

“I’m not joking, stop looking so excited. It’s serious.”

“Let him be excited about it for now,” William said, still mainly focused on the book about blood. “He could be useful-- oh my _gosh,_ Gabe, did you know a 42 gallon barrel of blood would be worth over $67,000? That’s crazy! Imagine an entire barrel of just _blood.”_

_“Interesting,_ right, Gabe?” Nate commented, briefly glancing at the book and then raising his eyebrows at Gabe.

Gabe only rolled his eyes at him and groaned. “Okay, but seriously, dude, you can knock it off now. No more talking about this until we’re alone.”

The minute Gabe and Nate were left alone in their dressing room right after everyone else left to get snacks, Nate sat further up on the couch and said, “So, I believe this would be a great chance to chat.”

Gabe pursed his lips and put away his cellphone. _“Right.”_ He had been dreading an actual talk on the matter. It wasn’t that he _didn’t_ trust Nate to be serious about it, but if how he’d acted so far was anything to go off of, it made Gabe unsure of whether Nate was really the best candidate to find out first. “How do I start this? I guess I’m curious as to how you figured it out.”

“I guess I just realized it when I was thinking about it last night,” Nate explained. “Like, you’re always sneaking off with William, and you totally cured whatever weird sickness he had, and you guys have this messy blood kink thing going on, and then there’s the whole bite on your neck, and--”

“You don’t think it’s _that_ obvious, right?”

“Nah, I don’t think so.” Nate shrugged. “If the others haven’t found out by now, I don’t think they’ll realize it unless you actually tell them or catch you and William.”

“But if you thought of it, it’s really only a matter of time ‘til everyone else does.” Gabe’s shoulders dropped. “I guess me and William will have to be more careful.”

“No shit. You can’t really exactly let more ‘dog attacks’ happen, can you?”

“You’re right. Damn, I still feel awful about that, but it’s not like I can really control what William does. He’s gotta eat somehow.”

“Wait,” Nate held up his hand to stop him. _“What?”_

“I said, _William’s gotta eat somehow.”_

“Yeah, that part I got, but… wait, _William’s_ the vampire? Not you?”

“You thought _I_ was the vampire?” Gabe demanded, pointing to himself animatedly. “Holy shit, you really thought it was me? Dude, William was the one that went missing, of course he’s the vampire!”

Nate considered it and said, “Yeah, that would actually make a lot more sense.”

Right then, William opened the dressing room door without warning and walked in. “You guys having the talk?”

Nate, shocked, stood up and stared at William with incredulity. “You… _you’re_ the vampire?”

William peeked his head out of the door, making sure nobody in the hall had overheard, and closed it behind him. “Yeah, dumbass, of course I’m a vampire. That’s what you’ve been implying this entire fucking time, is it not?”

Gabe snickered. “He thought it was _me.”_

_“You?”_ William chuckled. “Gabe Saporta? Being a _vampire?_ Yeah, no.”

“What? I’d totally be a great vampire.”

William ignored him and turned to Nate, who was still gaping. “How the hell did you think it was him?”

Nate struggled for words. “Um… I… I don’t know, I guess… I guess it could have been either of you?”

“Well, moving on from that,” William took a seat on the couch, crossing his fingers as if he meant business. “Does he want to be useful or not?”

“Useful?” Gabe asked. “What do you mean by useful?”

“Does he wanna give me his blood?”

Gabe turned from William to Nate, and as if it was a perfectly normal question, asked, “Do you wanna give him your blood?”

“What? _No!”_ Nate quickly shot it down. “Why the hell would I wanna do that?”

“Shame.” William shrugged, looking away at the wall. “I guess that just means I’ll have to mind-control you to forget I was ever a vampire in the first place and there’ll be more _dog_ attacks until I’m sure I can drink from Gabe without him fainting again.” He looked back to Nate, staring him dead in the eyes and pouting. “Is that what you _really_ want? It’s only a mere blood donation.”

“No!” Nate protested. “You can’t just make me forget this just because I don’t feel comfortable with giving you my blood!”

“I should have expected this from a Cobra Starship member.” William sighed rather bothersomely. “I suppose you’re all the same, aren’t you?”

“Enough,” Gabe interjected. “I’m sure we could work out some sort of compromise. Like, as long as you don’t tell anyone William’s a vampire and don’t buy us any more weird books, he’ll let you keep his memory.”

“Or…” Nate ventured, “considering you embarrassed me with the whole coin-dropping thing when it turned out I’m right, maybe I deserve a little compensation instead. I have been wanting a new ride cymbal for my kit.”

“Or maybe you should just be glad I didn’t slap you at breakfast when you were asking me and Gabe all about the dog attack!” William shot back. Fangs bared, he hissed, “I don’t owe you a damn _thing!”_

Nate flinched at the hiss and shrank back, any semblance of confidence in his bargaining abilities lost. “Oh. Yeah. You’ve really got a point there. Um, I’ll think about the whole blood donation thing. I won’t tell anyone about this, either, I swear!”

“You’re sure?” William asked, tilting his head innocently. Nate’s head bobbed up and down quickly as he nodded, terrified, and a friendly grin appeared on William’s face. “Perfect. Thank you for being so considerate. I’ll leave you two to your own dressing room, then.” He pressed a kiss to Gabe’s cheek before standing up. Before walking away, William’s grin disappeared as his eyes landed on Nate and he ordered, “You aren’t going to bother Gabe anymore about this, got it?”

Nate gave him a nervous thumbs up. “Got it.”

“I’m making him forget if he doesn’t want to give me his blood,” William said over the phone to Gabe. The night’s show was done and they were back on their buses, on the way to the next city. He was curled up in his bunk, the curtain shut as he held a juice box in his hand. It wasn’t like the juice box had any nutritional value or taste, but it was a nice feeling to be sucking on something even if it was a straw and not a neck. “If he doesn’t help us, he’s the opposite of an asset.”

“He’ll probably come around to it,” Gabe answered, trying to keep his voice down. He had made the mistake of taking the call when he was watching a movie with everyone else on the bus, including Nate, instead of going to his bunk or the bathroom for privacy. It wasn’t like Gabe would feel awkward leaving, he just didn’t want to miss the movie even though he’d already seen it a million times. “Just give him time.”

“He’s scared of me,” William said. “So this could really go either way. Also, kinda off-topic, but a member of Cobra Starship being _scared?_ Of _me?_ It’s really great for my ego.”

“I’m sure it is,” Gabe said, half-distracted by some action scene in the movie. “I mean, I hope he doesn’t agree just because he’s scared, though.”

“Are you kidding? That’d be even _cooler,”_ William insisted, sitting up to sit with his legs crossed. In the process, he bumped his head against the ceiling. “Ow! But seriously, it sounds shitty and I don’t know if you’ll get it, but like imagine all the shit we could get him to do for us if he’s scared of me.”

“Doesn’t sound like a very good band dynamic to me.”

“Okay, true, but… okay, yeah, maybe not the best for your band. But it’d be really great for me.”

“Yeah, still problematic. If he agrees, it shouldn’t be out of fear, it should be because he actually wants to help. I’m sure he’ll start thinking it’s cool once he gets over the fact it’s you who’s the...” Gabe stopped himself, remembering any of his bandmates could be overhearing him. “The… _you know._ Like, if he thought _I_ was the… you know, the guy who did _that_ one thing and still thought I was fine, maybe he’ll come around knowing it’s you.”

“Who are you talking to?” Vicky asked. She’d clearly heard the suspicious conversation, probably because Gabe was sitting right next to her.

“Um… Pete. About business, you know.”

“Pete?” Ryland asked, and Gabe found himself nodding even though it was dark in the bus. “Has he told you yet he’s gonna be at the next show?”

“He’s _what?”_ Gabe demanded, lifting his phone from his ear. “Why the hell is he gonna be at the show?”

“Because he wants to see it? I don’t know, I guess he just happens to be in town the night we’re playing.”

Gabe, for one, was not excited for Pete to see the mess that his and William’s singing of Snakes On a Plane had devolved into, wherein William and Gabe competitively flirted and touched each other all while trying not to imply the homoeroticism was actually real. He’d probably see the immediate change that had taken place in William’s stage presence as well, the unending bursts of energy and confidence that now characterized the vampire’s performance. And even if Gabe and William tried to stay away from each other, Pete would still point out they weren’t shooting threatening glares in each other’s way every few minutes and notice something was definitely up.

“Great,” Gabe huffed. “Because he didn’t tell me. I’ll just finish this call in private, then.” He got up and hurried past everyone to roll into his bunk. “Bilvy, did you hear Pete’s gonna be at the next show?”

“Well, now I have,” William said. He’d overheard the whole conversation while he sucked on his juice box. “I don’t see anything wrong with it. He’s seen us millions of times.”

“He’s going to notice!”

“Notice what?”

“All your weird vampire stuff!”

“If he does, just tell him I got addicted to cocaine. Seems to be about what everyone else thinks.”

“That’s not gonna work with him. He’s the one who made you be in his vampire music video, it’ll be the first thing he thinks of.”

“Most people don’t even think vampires _exist?”_ William reminded him, “It would be the last thing he thinks of, trust me. William Beckett, the guy who played some cocky vampire leader in his music video, being an _actual_ vampire? Ridiculous. You’re making a bigger deal out of this than it actually is.”

“I guess you’re right.”

“I am. You don’t have to worry about me, Gabanti. If Pete even does find out, I’ve got my whole mind-control thing going for me. Speaking of--” William paused, lowering his voice as he heard someone walk into the bunk area.

Carden suddenly pulled William’s curtain to the side intrusively and leaned down, holding in front of him the book about blood that he’d taken from Nate. It was an unspoken rule that it wasn’t the best idea to be ripping someone’s bunk curtain open without warning, especially this late, but apparently the book was that important. “Did _you_ leave this in the bathroom?”

“What? No, I didn’t leave it in the--”

“Whatever.” Carden put down the book on his bunk. “That’s some weird shit you enjoy reading. Not to kinkshame, but don’t ‘ya think you might be getting into this whole blood kink thing a little _too_ much?”

“Fuck off, it’s good for writing inspiration,” William lied. “Can you leave? I’m kinda on the phone here.”

“Fine, whatever. If it’s _really_ for your writing, just don’t make the next record all about your blood kink. Night.”

“Wait, Mike, throw this out for me.” William handed him his empty juice box, of which the straw was completely beaten and bitten. Carden looked down at the straw in disgust and just shut the curtain with a sigh. Once he was sure he was out of earshot, William whispered to Gabe, “Someone left my book in the bathroom. That means _someone_ was looking through my stuff.”

“What was that you said about me not having to worry about you?” Gabe playfully teased.

“It’s fine,” William said. “I don’t blame whoever it was, it _is_ a good book, after all.”

“Let me know if it happens again, okay? Sorry, but I’ve gotta go back to watching the movie and text Pete. Night, love you.”

“Love you too, good night.”

When Gabe pushed open his bunk curtain and crawled out, he saw Nate had been there waiting for him. “I know you guys were talking about me earlier.”

There was no use in denying the blatantly obvious, so Gabe shrugged and said, “Yeah.”

“Look, I was thinking about it and... I’ll do it for him. But _not_ because I’m scared. I just think it’s cool. Like, how many people can say they’ve been bitten by a vampire?”

“I guess you’re right. You’re not worried, considering the whole ‘dog’ attack thing?”

“Well, you’re still alive, right? It couldn’t go wrong,” Nate supposed. “But I’ll only do it if you guys give me a few days. I have to buy scarves that are less ugly than yours.”

“Ouch.”

“Someone had to tell you.” He smiled amusedly and held out his hand. “So, deal?”

Gabe assumed giving Nate a few days to prepare wouldn’t be that unreasonable to William, and Gabe could probably be bitten by William again without adverse side effects of blood loss if it was only just one more time. “Sure.” Gabe shook his hand firmly. “Sounds like a deal, man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looks like we'll get some Pete content next chapter!! Very exciting. And Nate's gonna get bitten hehe -. -
> 
> And if you noticed any foreshadowing in this chapter... no you didn't...
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed! :)


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's Pete time!!

“I’ve got to warn you, dude,” Alex told Pete, stopping him before he could reach for the doorknob of the dressing room. “Gabe and William have been acting really weird lately. So don’t be surprised if anything weird does happen. And tell us, of course.”

“Weird?” Pete asked. He slowly shifted away from the door to face Alex. “Weird how? Aren’t they always weird?”

“Well, yeah, I guess-- but that’s not the point. They’ve been even _weirder._ I don’t know if I can explain it, but… ugh, I really can’t. It’s the kind of thing you have to see for yourself.”

“I think I can handle it,” Pete assured him with a confident smile. In his years of experience of knowing Gabe and William, there was absolutely nothing that could surprise him. He turned back to the door and opened it.

Inside the dressing room, Gabe and William were both asleep, Gabe’s head resting on William’s lap peacefully as he laid across the couch. It was probably the most relaxed Pete had ever seen them around each other in at least a year.

“Fuck,” Pete muttered. “That _is_ weird.”

“That’s not even the worst of it,” Alex said, taking a step to stand next to him as Pete watched them bewilderedly through the doorway.

“I can’t believe this is actually happening!” Pete excitedly whispered as to not wake them. “They’re finally getting along! I thought they’d have killed each other by now, but no, they’re actually… sleeping together!”

“Sleeping together in more than one way,” Alex snidely remarked.

Pete gasped, and his hushed tone disappeared in an instant. “Holy shit!” Rather than being taken aback, he seemed elated that they really were getting along that much. “Really? That’s even better!”

Gabe and William didn’t plan on Pete finding out _already_ that they were more than friendly with each other, but they had no choice but to contend with it when they started to wake to Pete talking about it eagerly to Alex, who just kept nodding, not exactly sure whether to mention that the weirdness he had referenced was much more extreme than that before he eventually backed out of the room and ran.

“It’s so cool you guys are finally getting along!” Pete excitedly told them, “Now I can invite you guys to the same parties and not have to worry about you guys getting in a drunk fistfight! We all could go on tour together now that you guys are cool! We could--”

As Gabe watched Pete babble on about how this miraculous occurrence could drastically change their lives for the better, William nudged Gabe and glanced down at the scarf he wore quickly to signal his thirst.

“Yeah, yeah, dude,” Gabe said, interrupting Pete’s train of thought. “That’s really great. Me and William gotta… um, talk in private, though, so could we have a moment?”

“Take as long as you like.” Pete winked at them before he walked out of the dressing room, shutting the door behind him and leaving Gabe and William alone. William started to reach for Gabe’s scarf to pull it off, but Gabe leaned away and gently pushed away his hand.

“Could it wait until after the show?” Gabe requested. “I’m feeling fine and everything, I just don’t wanna faint on stage again, especially when Pete’s here.”

“Yeah, sure.” William agreed, hiding his disappointment. Although his thirst was still at a bearable level, he had spent the entirety of Pete’s enthusiastic rambling thinking about how much he’d savor Gabe’s warm blood before he had to deal with drinking from Nate, which he was still appreciative of but not preferable when compared to Gabe. “I can last ‘til after the show. Speaking of the show, do you still want to tone down the Snakes performance since Pete knows about us now or…”

Gabe considered it and shrugged. “I mean, there’s worse he could see. I don’t see why we should. Everyone’s probably expecting the usual homoeroticism by now, anyway.”

“They’re good,” Pete yelled over the music as he watched Gabe and William sing Snakes together. “Like, _really_ good together when they don’t hate each other. Like, _amazing.”_

Sisky, who was watching with Pete, tried to hide his blatant doubt by the bluntness of his answer. “Yeah.”

“They should totally make another song together,” Pete said. “With their voices together, it’d be even more of a hit now than Snakes On a Plane was.”

Sisky still wasn’t sure whether to pull Pete aside and tell him all of the weird shit William and Gabe were up to. They hadn’t even done anything around Pete more strange than napping with each other, which Sisky only knew about because Pete could _not_ stop bringing up how insanely _adorable_ it was. Besides, Gabe was much closer to Pete than Sisky was and could easily persuade him Sisky was just joking around about whatever ridiculous things he’d tell him.

So Sisky just settled for a simple, “I’m sure it would be.”

“Everything is going to be so different from now on.”

At least Sisky could agree with that. “Yep.”

“How’d they even start actually being able to stand being in the same room together, anyway?”

“Um…” Sisky had no clue. All he knew was the time William had gone missing had some sort of effect on it, but nothing more specific than that. “I think William said something about Gabe knowing him better than he knows himself?”

“Romantic,” Pete said, nodding approvingly. “But really, how?”

“You’ll have to ask them.” Sisky shrugged. “They don’t tell us anything anymore. But maybe you should stay out of it… seriously, they’ve been so _weird_ lately.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” Pete asked. “They haven’t done anything weird.”

Sisky decided to just cut to the chase. “William went missing a few weeks ago.”

“Missing?” Pete asked, thinking he’d probably heard him incorrectly over the loud music.

“Yeah, since--” The beginning of Sisky’s explanation was cut off by the ending of the song and the crowd’s cheering filling the venue. Pete’s attention instead turned to Gabe and William, watching as they walked off stage together to the side opposite of Pete and Sisky. “Sorry, I gotta go and talk to them, but we can talk later, alright?” Pete said it with one of his infectious smiles as he took a step back before rushing away. Sisky supposed it could wait.

“I need it _now,”_ William said insistently, dragging Gabe by his arm away from the stage and into the hallway.

“It was one song and you already need it?”

William yanked Gabe into the empty Cobra Starship dressing room and shut the door, backing Gabe up against the wall by pinning his shoulders there. “I know, but I got all hot and bothered watching you out there.”

He kissed Gabe, fingers twisting around the fabric of his scarf to undo it as one of his fangs pierced Gabe’s bottom lip, drawing a drop of blood to lick at with his tongue. The scarf slid down Gabe’s chest and to the floor after a final tug, revealing his neck to William. It had had more time than usual to heal, so the skin was clearer and less colorful than William usually liked to see. “I gotta give you more hickeys one of these days,” William said, lowering his lips to Gabe’s neck to press kisses to it. “I like seeing them, seeing that you belong to _me.”_

“Mm, yeah,” Gabe agreed, lost in the way the tips of William’s fangs were already grazing over his skin. “Hickeys are nice.”

“Good,” William mumbled into his neck before he bit down. He didn’t sink his fangs as deep as usual, wanting to enjoy the slow pooling of blood over the bite as long as he could. As he flicked his tongue over the bite while he drank, savoring the warmth in the taste, he pushed himself closer to Gabe and lowered one of his hands to palm him through his skinny jeans. Gabe threw his head back against the wall with a _thump_ and moaned, pushing his hips into William’s hand.

“Bilvy, I swear, keep fucking doing that,” Gabe said, his fingers finding William’s hair and pulling him closer to his neck as he drank. William’s hand grasped for the waistband of his jeans just as the door swung open.

They both froze as someone walked in. Gabe’s hands slowly dropped from William’s hair and William leaned away from Gabe’s neck the moment they met Pete’s shocked eyes. Blood dripped from the punctures in Gabe’s neck and painted William’s lips and chin a glossy red.

Pete gaped at them, eyes wide at the blood. _“Holy shit,”_ he finally whispered under his breath.

_“Pete,”_ William begged. “We can explain. I was just… um…”

“Yeah, he was just…” Gabe tried to explain, but he was just as clueless as to an excuse as William. There wasn’t really a way to dig themselves out of this one; they’d been caught.

Pete kept staring. Once he’d processed his discovery of that William was a fucking vampire, he finally lit up with a grin and exclaimed, “This is so COOL!” He slammed the door shut, unable to contain his eagerness. “I knew it! I knew you always were a vampire, if anyone was one, it had to be you! That’s why I chose you for the 16 Candles video, you were just too _perfect._ I can’t believe I was actually right!”

Neither of them had the heart to tell Pete the vampirism was rather recent, so they both went along with it. “Uh… yeah.” William said, licking the blood off his lips. “Yeah, I definitely made a suspiciously good vampire… huh.”

Pete stepped closer to examine William’s mouth, ogling his fangs. “That’s so fucking cool,” he said, reaching a finger to touch the end of a fang gingerly, “They’re, like, not noticeable but now that I’m noticing them, they’re _definitely_ fangs! Dentist appointments must be awkward, right?”

“I guess?” Now that William thought about it, he probably would never go to the dentist again. Hopefully blood didn’t cause cavities.

“Don’t worry, though, I can totally keep a secret,” Pete promised, making a zipping motion in front of his mouth, “My lips are _sealed._ I can’t believe vampires exist! You guys _have_ to tell me everything later. Okay, well, I’ll leave you two to get back to whatever the hell you were doing.” With a wink and a coy smirk at both of them, Pete stepped back and left the room.

William and Gabe looked back at each other, wide-eyed.

“Do you really think he’ll keep it a secret?” William asked.

Gabe hesitated and finally decided, “...Maybe. We’ll worry about it later. Just lick the blood off my neck before it dries.”

“I can _definitely_ do that.” William leaned back into his neck and ran his tongue over what was left of the blood. Even though the sexual heat had been lost, he was still able to sink back into the blood’s flavor for a brief moment.

When the show had ended, the night was inundated with alcohol. Everything was one dizzy, wavering, piss-drunk haze. Nothing particularly interesting happened at the bar except Pete rambling to William about _how fucking cool_ it was he was an _actual vampire_ and then interrogating him about all the specific details. Meanwhile, Gabe just had to make sure nobody they knew walked by while William described just how incredible the taste of blood was as Pete listened intently and took notes on the back of a napkin because of his insistence of “It’s _inspiring!”_ Pete’s unending fascination with the topic was more than obvious by now.

When Gabe went to the bar to get him, William, and Pete more drinks, Nate approached and asked, “Pete knows, doesn’t he?”

“Gee, how could you tell?” Gabe sarcastically asked, looking back at their table where William was pointing to his neck with his finger and enthusiastically telling Pete about some sort of vein there. “But yeah, he knows.”

“How come he gets to know right away and I had to figure it out myself?”

“He walked in on us,” Gabe said. “William’s fangs in my neck and everything. There was no way to explain that.”

“So now me and Pete know. When are the others gonna know? It’s only a matter of time before someone who isn’t as… supernaturally-obsessed as Pete walks in on you two doing your weird vampire shit and is smarter than me to tell everyone else.”

“We’ll be more careful.”

“I’m sure that’s what you said after I found out, and now Pete knows.”

“There’s only a few more shows.” Gabe watched as now William held Pete’s wrist, running his thumb down the veins in it and admiring it a bit too much. “Bill will only have to worry about his own band finding out once we all go home. It won’t be my problem anymore.”

“Seven shows is still a lot.”

“Well, yeah, but--” Gabe stopped when he saw William lift Pete’s wrist to his nose to give it a sniff. “I’ve gotta go.”

He left Nate, marching back to the table. “Bill!” Gabe said, his height looming disapprovingly over them as he stood in front of the table. “Knock that off!”

“Knock _what_ off?” William giggled. “I’m just smelling Pete’s cologne.”

“I think you’ve had too much to drink.” Gabe plucked William’s loose fingers off of Pete’s wrist and took away his beer bottle to put it out of reach. William pouted.

“But he smells _nice,”_ William insisted, leaning toward Pete’s neck. Pete didn’t seem to mind, unphased by the action.

Gabe placed a hand on William’s shoulder before he could get too carried away with admiring Pete’s neck. “I think we should go back to the bus.”

“I’ve still got so much to ask, though!” Pete protested. He held up his napkin to make a point, but it was completely covered in scrawled notes and messy scribbles that would be undecipherable when he found it in his pocket in the morning.

“Just call him later,” Gabe suggested, gently tugging on William’s shoulder. William stood up with a sigh to follow him back to the hotel. “It was great hanging out with you, though.”

“But…”

“Why don’t you talk about your vampire obsession with Nate?” Gabe suggested, pointing to an unsuspecting Nate standing near the bar alone, unaware he was about to have Pete’s intoxicated raving unleashed upon him. “He knows about William.”

“Cool!” Pete’s face lit up with a grin. After he’d said good night to Gabe and William, he excitedly made a beeline for Nate and started explaining his napkin filled with nonsensical notes. Nate hardly seemed that amused, but being that Pete was pretty fucking drunk, he felt bad for him and so was forced to deal with it.

Meanwhile, Gabe led a stumbling William a few blocks back to where the buses had been parked. He only planned on making sure William brushed his teeth and got in bed, but before they could even get on William spun around, pinned Gabe to the bus, and gave him a messy desperate kiss filled with saliva, teeth, tongue, and the taste of faint remnants of alcohol and blood.

“Can we please fuck?” William begged, pulling back from the kiss with spit dripping from his lips and finally giving Gabe a chance to catch his breath.

“You are _so_ fucking drunk.”

“But you are too,” drunk William rationalized, “so it’s fine.”

“Not as much as you.”

_“Pleaseeee?”_ William whined, pulling down Gabe’s scarf to press kisses to his neck, circling the bite from earlier.

Gabe finally relented and said, “Okay, fine.” William happily gave him a dramatic smooch on the lips before pulling him onto the bus. They squeezed themselves into William’s bunk, throwing a few stray t-shirts out of the way before William started to barrage his neck with kisses again.

“You know what’d be funny?” William asked, giggling at the thought a delayed second after.

“What?”

“I was thinking, it’d be so _ironic_ and sorta _hot_ if you drank my blood,” William explained. “Like, ‘cause _I’m_ the vampire, get it? But you’d be drinking _my_ blood.”

Although Gabe wasn’t nearly as drunk as William, his rationale was certainly muddled by alcohol too and the thought that there could be consequences didn’t come to mind. “We could try it, I guess.”

“Yes!” William squealed and eagerly kissed Gabe for a few lingering moments before he crawled over, straddling his legs. “Okay, let’s do it now. This is gonna be _so_ fun.”

As if it was instinct, William raised his own wrist to his mouth and bit into it. Inflicting a wound on himself seemed to come naturally. The sting didn’t even make him flinch; instead, he took it from his mouth, blood pooling from the bite, and raised it over Gabe’s mouth. The blood dripped onto Gabe’s lips, staining them red. His tongue darted out to lick his lips and he practically moaned when the taste flooded his mouth.

“That actually tastes kinda good.”

William cocked his head. “Interesting.” He grinned. “Want more?”

Gabe didn’t even say anything, snatching William’s wrist and yanking it down to his mouth. He ran his tongue over the blood, eyes fluttering closed as he got lost in the taste, and then thirstily began to suck at the bite, drawing more blood from William’s veins to swallow greedily.

After a prolonged period of letting Gabe drink, William stole his wrist back from Gabe’s mouth, smirking as he admired Gabe’s lips dripping warm with blood. “That was _so_ fucking hot,” William muttered before he dove in to kiss the blood off of his mouth.

Gabe, although he was enjoying it, found himself growing tired, exhaustion weighing down on his eyelids even though they’d just begun. His lips stopped moving, and when William pulled back, confused, Gabe mumbled, “I’m tired.”

“Already?” William asked. He caressed his cheek with his thumb, smearing a bit of blood by his jaw. _“Gabanti,_ I’m already half-hard, don’t fall asleep. That’d be so mean.”

Gabe didn’t hear, already drifting into sleep. William didn’t mind as much as he thought he would, laying back down next to him and admiring his bloodstained face for a while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I cockblocked in like two separate instances... oops. You can be as mad at me as you want. But I wonder if anything will come of Gabe drinking William's blood... can't be anything _too_ bad, right? ;) Hope you guys liked the chapter!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmm some spicy drama this chapter hope you like it

Gabe found himself awake at six A.M., snuggled tightly in William’s arms and still on the TAI bus. He gently wriggled away from William’s grasp in order to use the bathroom. A wave of nausea hit him as he sat up, but he inhaled deeply and told himself he wouldn’t let the hangover win over.

Once he had stepped into the tiny bathroom and flicked on the blinding light, Gabe was met with his reflection, lips battered with dried blood. He wasn’t sure where it came from since his last memory was being kissed against a bus, but he automatically assumed William must have drank from him while they were drunk. Not optimal, but Gabe would just have to be more careful in the following days to stave off the effects of further blood loss. He ran the faucet and dipped his hands under the cold water to wipe the blood off.

Gabe had forgotten to lock the door, so while he was washing the blood off his mouth, a tired Mike Carden opened the bathroom door, stared at Gabe as he turned around and then at the bloody water in the sink, and then shrugged and closed the door again, unphased by the encounter. By now, the blood kink was pretty much old news.

Gabe went back to his own band’s bus when he finished in the bathroom. He felt bad about leaving William to sleep alone, but he didn’t feel like dealing with the awkward stares that’d be thrown his way if the rest of William’s bandmates found out he stayed the night.

When Gabe had finally settled into his own bunk, he realized his scarf was still on as well his jeans. The only bite on his neck was the one Pete had walked in on, nothing more aching and recent. He had no idea where the blood he’d woken up with on his face could have come from, but he fell asleep again too quickly to care.

It was an ordinary, hungover afternoon, except that Gabe didn’t feel hungover; he felt _incredible._ While the bus was nearing the next city, Gabe kept winning each round of the video game while everyone else played wearily and distracted by headaches. He hadn’t eaten or drank anything since waking up. Hunger and thirst hadn’t so much as crossed his mind.

However, that feeling ended far too soon when Gabe’s stomach lurched and vomit began to rise in his esophagus. The bus was in the middle lane of a busy highway, so it wasn’t like he could run to the bus driver and ask him to pull over. Instead, Gabe threw his video game controller off his lap in the middle of a round and raced to the bathroom. He fell to his knees at the toilet and gripped the sides of the seat as he started to throw up, retching out all the food and alcohol he’d had last night coated with a deep, near-black shade of crimson. It almost smelled like blood.

The rest of the band listened to the awful sound with pity, thinking it was probably Gabe’s long overdue hangover and hoping it wouldn’t make the bus stink of stomach acid. When Gabe had finished, he trudged out of the bathroom like a ghost, looking fragile and pale. The entire band’s eyes widened as they saw his wretched state.

“Dude, are you _okay?”_ Alex asked. If this was a hangover, it looked like the worst one Gabe had experienced in his life, which said a lot considering his drinking habits.

“Yeah,” Gabe meekly said, hand grasping at the wall for support. “I’m gonna take a nap.”

Gabe woke up with a start, realizing after a few weak-willed seconds of consciousness he was about to throw up yet again. He rolled out of his bunk, falling to the floor with a _thump_ so he could flee to the bathroom. When the rest of the bus heard his vomiting for the second time in an hour, that was when they _really_ grew concerned.

Gabe couldn’t stand up. He had to pathetically crawl out of the bathroom when he finished throwing up, shaking even on his hands and knees. He was even paler now, eyes hollow and anxious.

“Are you _okay?”_ he was asked for the second time, this time by Vicky.

“Yeah,” Gabe mumbled, “M’good.” Instead of crawling back to his bunk, he laid down in the middle of the floor and groaned. His forehead was soaked with glistening sweat.

“You don’t look okay at all,” Nate said.

“I’m fine,” Gabe insisted, staring up at the ceiling. “My dad is a doctor. It’s probably food poisoning.”

Everyone else exchanged dubious looks. No one in their right mind could look at Gabe Saporta right now and believe that he was telling the truth as he lay splayed out on the floor, completely fatigued from throwing up whatever the hell could have been left in his stomach after the last time.

“Here, I’ll help you to bed,” Ryland offered, standing up and leaning over Gabe to help him sit up, then stand with one arm over Ryland’s shoulders.

“I can still perform tonight,” Gabe said deliriously while Ryland helped him into his bunk. “I’ll be fine after a nap.”

“That was what you said before and you threw up again. You look like absolute shit.”

“Wow, thanks,” Gabe muttered, tugging his blanket to his chest.

“You can’t go out on stage looking like this,” Ryland said. “There’s no way we can play tonight if you’re this sick.”

“M’ _fineeee.”_

“Don’t worry about it. Just get some sleep, okay? Let us know if you need anything.”

“Did you drug him?”

Well, William certainly wasn’t expecting that when he picked up his cellphone with an unexpected call from Ryland. “What the fuck kind of question is that? No, why?”

“He looks like a miserable sack of shit right now,” Ryland said, “He keeps saying it’s food poisoning, but it’s _not._ He looks way worse than that. He’s thrown up two times in the last hour.”

“Maybe he’s pregnant.”

“This is serious! Just tell me if you remember anything from last night that could have caused this or not!”

As William thought, the rest of his band, who he’d forced to pause filming a TAI TV episode so he could answer the call, cast suspicious glances to the side at him. He pretended they weren’t looking. “I really can’t remember anything. I don’t know if someone could have slipped something into his drink, me and Pete were there the whole time. Unless…”

“Unless what?”

William suddenly remembered last night and how he’d drunkenly made Gabe drink his blood. He shot out of his seat, exclaiming, “Holy shit, it must be my blood, isn’t it?”

The rest of the band gave him a mixture of confused and alarmed looks, which William still ignored. _“What?”_ Ryland demanded. By the tone of his voice, William could tell he was probably scrunching his eyebrows.

“Nothing.”

However, it was too late to take back what had been said. “I can’t fucking believe-- did he _drink_ your blood? What the _hell?_ This whole blood kink thing has gone way too far!”

William shrank back in his seat in humiliation. “Yeah… but we were drunk! I thought it’d be funny!”

“Well, good for you, because you made Gabe sick as fuck and now there’s no way we can perform our set tonight. Good job, I hope you’re proud of yourself!”

“We were _drunk!_ Like, really drunk. You can’t blame me!”

“Mhm.”

“Whatever. Okay, look, just keep me updated on Gabe, alright?”

“Sure-- holy shit, Gabe’s vomiting on the floor! What the fuck _is_ that?” And then Ryland hung up without saying goodbye, because obviously Gabe was throwing up some unknown substance of a disturbing unnatural color and that needed to be dealt with.

William put away his cell phone and nodded to the rest of his very concerned band members to signal they could continue filming. He mostly stayed out of that TAI TV episode, too overcome with guilt to put on a smile for the camera. William had no idea what he’d done to Gabe, only that he felt like a fucking failure of a vampire for not even considering there could be consequences to letting someone drink his very inhuman blood.

The bus had just parked when Gabe strode out of the bunk area, looking fine for the most part, but only fine. Everyone gaped as if he’d been miraculously resurrected from the dead.

Even though he could actually stand on two feet without wavering, Ryland cut him off before he could speak and said, _“No,_ you’re not performing when you’ve thrown up three times today. We’ve already cancelled our set. I don’t care how you feel right now, you could regress any minute.”

“Oh, come on.” Gabe groaned. “I feel fine!”

In unison, everyone else said, “No.”

“Damn. It was worth a try.” Gabe bent down to open the mini fridge and grabbed a water bottle, cracking it open and gulping it down. The ice-cold water hit his throat refreshingly as he tilted his head up, drinking every last drop. The relief only lasted for a moment; within seconds, he was opening the mini fridge again for another water bottle.

“You shouldn’t be drinking that so fast,” Vicky said. “It’ll upset your stomach.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Gabe disregarded her completely, unscrewing the cap of the second water bottle and gulping it down just as fast and thirstily as the last. When he finished it, he dropped it, letting it roll across the bus floor as he reached to grab yet another water bottle.

“I think that’s enough water.”

“I’m still fucking thirsty,” Gabe insisted, but Alex leaned over and pushed his hand away from the mini fridge.

“That’s _enough._ You’re probably going to be throwing up again in five minutes.”

“Suarez,” Gabe sighed, “I _really_ don’t fucking care. I’m just thirsty right now. I’m not gonna throw up again.” Even after two entire water bottles, he felt as parched as he usually did when he was in the middle of fasting on Yom Kippur. So Gabe grabbed a third water bottle anyway and the rest of the band disapprovingly looked on while he gulped it all down as well.

Gabe’s temporary strength didn’t last long; at the time when he would have usually been about to start his set if it hadn’t been cancelled, he started shivering. Since then, he’d been informed that he’d drank William’s blood when he was drunk, but nobody was actually letting Gabe see William so they could theorize about what the hell was going on. Whenever Gabe asked if someone could get William so they could talk for _just a second, please, I swear it’ll only be a second and I’ll take another nap,_ everyone treated William as if he’d be a danger. Even though they were both very, very drunk when Gabe had drank his blood, they all seemed to assume the harm had been intentional. Especially Nate, knowing what William really was.

It was a hotel night, so Cobra Starship checked into the hotel much earlier than usual. Nate insisted Gabe share a room with him instead of William as planned. Gabe was hardly pleased with this.

“I’m gonna call William at least,” Gabe said, sitting on his bed while Nate flipped through TV channels. “He’s gotta be worried for me, right?”

“He’s on stage right now,” Nate said, glancing at the time. “He won’t answer.”

Gabe sighed and flopped onto his back. “Damn.”

“His blood could literally be killing you, and all you care about is hearing that negligent bastard’s voice?”

“Stop being so dramatic, it’s not killing me. I feel much better now. I’m not shaking anymore and I haven’t thrown up in hours.”

“I’m not stopping you from calling him when he’s done,” Nate said. That was the end of the conversation. Gabe kept watching Nate flip through TV channels for something interesting to watch. “Oh, hey, it’s Snakes On a Plane. Your _favorite_ movie.”

When Gabe glanced over at the TV and then at Nate, he found his eyes affixed to Nate’s neck. The unmarred, unbitten, smooth, soft skin of his neck. “That’s cool,” Gabe said absentmindedly.

“Do you wanna watch it?” Nate waited for a response, but nothing came. He turned around and pressed, “Gabe, do you wanna watch it or not?”

Gabe’s eyes snapped away from Nate’s neck and he sat back up. “Oh. Yeah. Sure, I guess.”

As they watched the movie, Gabe’s eyes yet again drifted to Nate’s neck. He had no idea why, but there was something... _entrancing_ about it. He crawled off his bed and onto Nate, sliding next to him and leaning his chin on his shoulder so he could smell his neck. Nate immediately tensed up. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Gabe said. “Your neck just smells nice.”

A hard realization hit Nate. “Holy shit,” he whispered under his breath, panic swallowing up every breath in his lungs. “Holy _shit.”_

Gabe ignored Nate’s mini freak-out, pressing his nose against his neck. “You’re warm.”

“When you drank William’s blood…” Nate said, putting the pieces together. “Holy fucking crap, did he turn you into a vampire?”

The notion alone made Gabe throw his head back in laughter. “What the hell? That’d be fucking ridiculous!” He cackled. “Imagine _me._ A _vampire._ That’d never happen!”

“Listen,” Nate said with urgency. He moved to the side, distancing himself from Gabe. “It makes sense. You drank William’s blood, you got really fucking sick, and now you’re being weird about my neck! If you’re not a vampire, I don’t know what else could be wrong with you.”

“I’m _not_ a vampire!” Gabe’s tone lost all humor; instead, he now seemed offended Nate was taking the thought seriously.

“Then why the hell were you so close to my neck? Huh?”

“Can’t I just aesthetically appreciate a neck?”

“No, Gabe, most people don’t--” Nate was interrupted by the ringing of Gabe’s cellphone. Gabe flew back to his own bed, and upon grabbing his cellphone, saw it was William. He picked up, immediately forgetting Nate had been accusing him of turning into a vampire.

“Hey, Bilvy!” Gabe greeted, the cheeriness not very befitting of the current situation. “How was the show?”

“Hey, it was good. How are you doing? I heard you weren’t feeling so good earlier.”

“Oh, yeah, I feel great now!” Gabe said. “I’ve definitely already gotten over whatever reaction I had to your blood earlier. So, I was thinking I could come to your room tonight if you’re--”

Nate tore the cellphone out of Gabe’s hand just for long enough to yell, “Gabe’s turning into a fucking vampire!” before Gabe could snatch it back.

“He’s lying!” Gabe claimed.

“Put me on speaker.”

“But--”

“Gabanti, put me on speaker _now.”_

Rolling his eyes, Gabe put William on speaker and held out the phone.

“Why do you think Gabe’s turning into a…” William trailed off, remembering he was still backstage and around people who could potentially hear the conversation.

“Well, he’s been throwing up and really fucking sick.”

“But not anymore!”

“I’m not finished. Gabe just got on my bed to tell me how good my neck smelled.”

“I was just appreciating it! It was a compliment!”

William was quiet for a moment until he said, “Fuck, it makes sense.”

“No, it doesn’t!” Gabe protested. “It does _not_ make sense. Are you seriously buying into this?”

“I don’t fucking know how va-- how you-know-whats are made! It’s very possible I could have done it by accident. What’s your hotel room? I’ll be there as soon as we get there so we can talk about this.”

As soon as Nate opened the door for William, he ran into the room and smothered Gabe with a hug. “Gabanti, how are you feeling?” he demanded, pulling back with an extremely concerned expression on his face.

“I feel _fine,_ it’s seriously--”

“Let me see your teeth.” William ordered. Gabe didn’t see the point but opened his mouth for him anyway. “You don’t have fangs yet.”

“So then I’m not turning?” Gabe asked hopefully, eyebrows raised with denial.

“It took a few days for my fangs to come in, it just means you’re not completely a vampire. What did your vomit look like?”

“Seriously? Do we have to talk about this?”

“Yes, we do.”

“I’m not telling you.”

William only turned to Nate. “Did you see what it looked like?”

“It definitely wasn’t normal. It was all dark and shit.”

William looked back at Gabe. “Have you been thirsty at all?”

“No!”

“He drank five water bottles on the bus before he wasn’t thirsty anymore,” Nate said.

“That’s an exaggeration!”

“Gabe,” William put his hands on his shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. “You need to accept it. This is exactly the process I went through when I was turning.”

“There’s no way this is real,” Gabe denied. He stepped back, loosening William’s hands off of him. “It’s just gotta be food poisoning.” Gabe reached for his cellphone. “If I call my dad, there has to be a reasonable explanation for all this--”

“You drank fucking _vampire blood!”_ Nate emphasized. “There is no other reasonable explanation!”

William snatched Gabe’s cell phone from his hand and threw it onto the bed. “You _can't_ call your dad about this. He’s not going to know what’s going on. You’re becoming a vampire, but it’s going to be okay. I know what it’s like. I was constantly denying it myself. Let me help you, Gabanti, _okay?_ You gotta trust me.”

Gabe froze, staring straight back at William. The truth started to sink in; this was no dream. One poor drunken decision was the reason he was becoming a vampire, just like William. He’d have to subsist on a diet of blood for the rest of his life, however long his supposed "life" turned out to be.

A sob ripped from Gabe’s throat. “I… I didn’t think…” He choked out, eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t think…”

William hugged him, holding him close and kissing his forehead while he shuddered with cries. Into Gabe’s ear, he whispered, “I’m sorry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...so...Gabe's turning into a vampire...
> 
> I hope you guys enjoyed the chapter!


	14. Chapter 14

Gabe wasn’t crying into William’s shoulder for long when his stomach suddenly jerked and he had to race to the bathroom. William knelt down next to him as he threw up, murmuring quiet words of comfort and rubbing his back while he watched Gabe cough up the unmistakable red of blood. When Gabe had finished, he was left with a painfully sharp stinging in his stomach and a rawness in his throat while William helped him sit back.

“You’re definitely turning faster than I did,” William said, gently wiping a washcloth around Gabe’s mouth. “But that’s good, right? You’ll get it over with sooner.”

“Mhm.” Gabe groaned. “It better be quick. It _hurts.”_

“I know, Gabanti.” William took away the washcloth and pressed a kiss to his sweaty forehead. “You’re doing so well.”

“I’m thirsty.”

“Let me see your teeth.” Gabe weakly opened his mouth. Using his thumb, William pushed up at Gabe’s top lip to inspect the top of his teeth. “Nothing yet. It’ll still be a while until you can have blood.”

As Nate listened to the subsiding of the sound of Gabe’s vomiting from outside the bathroom, a brisk knock sounded at the door. He dragged himself off of the bed he lay on, went to the door, and lined his eye up with the peephole. Ryland, Alex, and Vicky were waiting outside in the hotel hallway. By now, Gabe’s throwing up could longer be heard, so Nate decided it would be safe to open the door a crack.

“How’s Gabe doing?” Vicky asked. “We wanted to check on him.”

“Oh, he’s doing fine, now’s just not the right time—”

“Why not?” Alex interrupted. “Can we see him?”

Firmly, Nate answered, “Not right now.”

“But why not?”

“He’s… um… he’s just not feeling too well. Maybe later.”

“Is he throwing up again?” Ryland asked.

“Um… no, it’s just…”

“Why can’t you just let us in?” Vicky demanded. She tried to push the door open further, but Nate held it back.

“Look, you guys just can’t barge in like this!” Nate insisted.

“We just want to see Gabe and check on how he’s doing,” Alex said, as Vicky continued her attempts at pushing the door open. “You’re being ridiculous.”

Overhearing the confrontation from the bathroom, William came to the door. “What’s going on?”

“Oh, so _he_ can come in,” Ryland said, “but _we_ can’t?”

“Gabe is _fine.”_ William caught the door with his hand, his grasp firm so it couldn’t be pushed open. “You can see him later.”

“If he’s fine, let us see him now.”

“He’s taking a shower,” William lied.

“That’s bullshit.” Vicky pointed to William. “Nate, you’re really going to let _him_ push us around like this?”

As Nate opened his mouth to speak, William stated, “Gabe doesn’t want to see you right now. I told you to come back later.” With one effortless push, the door slammed shut, causing Vicky to jump back. Appalled that he would just shut the door on them abruptly like that, the three-fifths of the band pounded on the door a few times and called out for Nate to “Fucking open it or else!” before they eventually gave up and left.

“Well, now that that’s done,” William said once it’d been silent for a few seconds, turning to Nate. “I was going to ask you if you have any qualms with giving Gabe your blood whenever he’s done turning.”

“Oh.” One of Nate’s eyebrows raised. “He won’t like… kill me, right?”

William shook his head. “I don’t think so. I could control myself, so you’ll _probably_ be fine.”

Nate gave him a grimacing smile and a thumbs-up, because he knew there weren’t many other options. “Uh… great. I’ll let him drink my blood. But what are you guys going to do for blood from now on since now there’s two of you and I’m the only human on this tour that knows?”

“Damn,” William said, and admitted, “I haven’t really thought about that.”

However, before he could give a definitive solution, they heard Gabe’s coughing from the bathroom again as he started to throw up. William raced away from the door and to the bathroom, soon back at Gabe’s side to comfort him. Nate stood in the doorway of the bathroom, watching as William helped Gabe lean back from the toilet when he’d finally finished. “Gabanti,” William crooned gently, “Let me see your teeth again.”

Gabe, now leaning his side against William’s chest while they sat on the floor, opened his mouth. A light smile crossed William’s lips as he inserted a finger to poke at the tip of a fang.

“You’re almost there,” William observed, taking his finger away and wiping the residue on his shirt. “I think you could try biting Nate after you rinse out your mouth. Come on, I’ll help you up.”

Gabe nodded weakly and let William help him up to lean against the sink. While William wetted another washcloth to wipe Gabe’s face with, he glanced over at Nate, silently telling him there was no backing out now. Nate tried to tell himself there was nothing to be worried about, that he trusted Gabe and he would never kill him-- at least, not on purpose. This was something to be _excited_ about; how many other opportunities would Nate have had to be bitten by a vampire if he refused and ran now?

After Gabe had spat out some water into the sink to rinse out his mouth, going down the drain with a tinted red coloring to it, William nodded Nate over. Nate took a step into the bathroom, swallowing back the lump in his throat as William helped Gabe turn around and face him. Upon seeing his neck, Gabe’s gaze locked on it as if hypnotized; his posture straightened and his pupils dilated.

“Go for it, dude,” Nate told him, closing his eyes tight and mentally preparing himself to feel cold Gabe’s teeth dig into his skin.

Suddenly, Nate was slammed against the wall, the back of his head immediately aching. He wouldn’t be surprised if he had a bruise on the back of his head later. William sighed as if it was a mere inconvenience and scolded, “Gabe, don’t be so rough!”

“Oh, sorry,” Gabe quickly apologized.

“It’s fine,” Nate assured him, his eyes still pressed shut.

Gabe wasted no time in biting into Nate’s neck, moaning loudly as the taste of blood fell thickly on his tongue and warmed his throat. He continued to gulp it down, savoring the flavor. His grip on Nate’s shoulder tightened with every swallow, and if Nate wasn’t wearing sleeves, he was sure Gabe’s nails would have been digging into his skin enough to bruise him. A few stray drops of blood that escaped Gabe’s mouth trickled down and soaked the collar of Nate’s shirt, making the fabric stick wet and hot to his skin. The pain only lasted for a few moments before it faded and left Nate with a pleasant, ethereal feeling as if he was about to ascend to another level of being.

However, Nate was startled out of it when William said, “Enough.” after about a minute and gently tugged at Gabe’s shoulder. Gabe removed himself from Nate’s neck and took a step back, wiping at the blood on his mouth with the back of his hand.

“That was amazing!” A grin lit up Gabe’s face, showing off the tips of his fangs tinged with red. His strength had since returned as well as the color to his skin. He didn’t even seem to mind that he had gone from never eating meat to consuming human blood as his main source of nutrition; in fact, he appeared excited at the prospect. “Thank you so much. Seriously, you’re such a great bandmate.”

Nate held one of his hands up to the bite, waiting for the bleeding to stop. “Yeah, uh, it’s no problem.”

Ryland, Alex, and Vicky returned to Gabe and Nate’s hotel room around an hour later. They all had resolved that they were getting past Nate and William to see Gabe if they still refused to let them in, _no matter what._

However, the use of force ultimately turned out to be unnecessary. Gabe himself answered the door after only a few knocks, reassuringly smiling when he laid eyes on them. “Hey, what’s up? Good news, I’m feeling _way_ better than earlier.”

Something about the nonchalant-ness sent a chill down their spines. It was Gabe; but there was something different in him, although the question of what exactly was yet to be answered. There was no sign he’d been sick earlier. Besides the fading stench of vomit that still lingered on his clothes, he was standing without shaking limbs, the glow of life under his skin had been reignited, and an undertone of liveliness had returned to his voice. It was a high contrast to before and therefore, the three all collectively and rightfully deemed it suspicious.

“You… do look a lot better,” Ryland admitted. “That was really quick. I thought we were going to have to take you to the hospital or something. Like, you _really_ freaked us out for a while there.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m pretty lucky.” Gabe innocently shrugged and opened the door wider. “So, do you guys wanna come in to hang out with us for a while?”

“Actually, we’re good,” Alex said, just as Ryland and Vicky were about to step forward. They looked back at him, confused, but then looked back at Gabe and realized maybe Alex did have a point. “We should probably get to bed.”

“Yeah,” Vicky agreed. “Where’s Nate? I’d feel bad not saying good night to him.”

Gabe twisted around and called out, “Nate!”

Nate came to the door, looking as normal as ever except for one particular detail. Ryland, Alex, and Vicky’s eyes all widened, each’s posture stiffening once they saw the bite mark adorning his neck and the bloodstain embellishing the corner of his shirt he’d neglected to hide.

Alex’s jaw dropped open, almost as wide as a yawn before finally being able to utter, “Where did _that_ come from?”

“Nowhere!” Gabe said quickly. “Anyways, night!” With a flick of his wrist, the door swung shut as if nothing ever happened.

William had ended up staying the night in Gabe and Nate’s room just in case, so in the morning they all walked to the hotel’s complimentary breakfast together. They had barely just struck up a conversation between the three of them when Pete called William to ask him a conglomeration of even more random vampire questions, like “Do you count random shit?” (William was disappointed to say that myth was true) and “Do energy vampires exist?” (That, William had no fucking idea what he was talking about) and “How do you turn someone into a vampire?”

“Well, considering I accidentally turned Gabe into a vampire the other day,” William told him, leaning against the wall of the elevator with one arm crossed over his chest and the other lifting his cellphone to his ear, “I think it’s safe to say it happens when you drink a vampire’s blood.”

Gabe had been waving his hands furiously at William to _cut it the hell out_ because the last thing they needed was for Pete to fangirl even more about Gabe now being a vampire, but it was too late. Pete shrieked in excitement and started demanding to know all about every single intricacy of the process.

When the elevator opened into the hotel lobby, Gabe had to lightly hit William’s shoulder and glare at him to get him to stop recounting, in gruesome detail that only Pete could enjoy, the texture of Gabe’s bloody vomit over the phone. While they walked out of the elevator and William tried to end the call despite Pete still managing to come up with a thousand new questions on the topic of bloody vomit alone, Nate was pulled to the side by Vicky, who’d been waiting for him. Gabe and William didn’t really notice since they were much too distracted by trying to hang up on Pete.

Nate was smart enough to be wearing a scarf now, but Vicky immediately ripped it off his neck despite his protest of _“Hey!”_ to point at the bite and demand, “Seriously, what the hell happened last night? Why is Gabe acting so weird? Why do you look like you’re the one who was bitten by a fucking cobra?”

“Nothing happened.” Nate sighed, trying to snatch the scarf from her as she held it above him. This was one of those times where being the shortest member of the band was quite the inconvenience. “Give me my scarf back!”

“I’ll give it to you when you answer some fucking questions. How’d you get a bite on your neck and why are you all acting so weird about it?”

“Or you could just give me my scarf back now.”

“Or you could just answer my question.”

Gabe came up from behind Vicky and finally plucked the scarf from her hand to give back to Nate. “You know it’s not really your business, right?”

“It is my business if we’re all worried,” Vicky insisted while Nate took the opportunity to back away so he could actually get himself some food. “We realized last night the symptoms of whatever the hell your ‘sickness’ was matches pretty perfectly with whatever William had.”

“It was food poisoning. Of course it’d be pretty fucking similar.”

“That was _not_ food poisoning and you know it. How can you deny this when we literally had to clean up the weird bloody vomit you got on the bus floor yesterday?”

“Look,” Gabe said. “If you or the rest of the band can somehow figure out whatever is theoretically wrong with me, then go ahead and tell me your guess and I’ll answer honestly. But until you actually put some thinking into it like Nate did, I’m not telling you.”

“And why can’t you just tell me?”

The corner of Gabe’s mouth curved upward, his tone playfully taunting as he told her, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love vampire Gabe ugh
> 
> Anywaysss now that Gabe's a vampire, I wonder if this'll at all help the others figure out what the fuck is going on. Or maybe everyone will just keep being clueless for the duration of the fic. Who knows lol.
> 
> Also... I know there's not as much smut as I planned there to be in this fic but I'm gonna try to fit in one more scene in this, and I'll try to put more in the sequel. So yay for hot vampire sex lmao.
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for the Jewish angst it kinda came out of nowhere lol but like... I don't know why but I can't control myself with that kinda stuff but someone's gotta write it.

Right before boarding the buses, William and Gabe found themselves being pulled aside by Sarti. They thought something or other about the tour had been fucked up, because he was making whatever he had to ask seem very important, and they braced themselves to hear whatever the news was (and hoped he’d be quick, because even with sunglasses, the sun was still fucking annoying).

“Pete called me up and told me you’re vampires.”

Gabe and William stared down at their shoes guiltily. “I can’t fucking believe Pete _told_ you,” William murmured under his breath.

“So this really isn’t a joke?”

“Okay, _maybe_ we are vampires,” Gabe said. “And maybe I’m gonna kick Pete’s ass later. I don’t know.”

“I guess we _technically_ fit the definition of a vampire,” William said. “In a social construct sort of way, aren’t we _all_ just vampires, enslaved to the music industry as vampires are to blood? Maybe that’s what Pete meant.”

“Poetic,” Sarti said, raising his eyebrows. “But I think Pete meant actual vampirism. He called me thirty minutes ago and said he was so excited he had to tell _someone_ about it.”

“I should have known Pete couldn’t keep this a secret,” William sighed. “You won’t tell anyone, right?”

“No. At least, not from this point on.”

Gabe narrowed his eyes at Sarti, although it was hardly threatening with the sunglasses on his face. “Who the hell did you tell?”

“Well, Ricky happened to call me a few minutes after Pete finished talking, so I told him Pete had called me and he asked about what and it just went from there--”

“Wait, stop, you told my _brother?”_ Gabe demanded. “You told _Ricky?”_

“I couldn’t just not. He’s your brother, I thought it was funny and we had a good laugh about it--”

Gabe turned around and yelled, “¡Maldita sea!” while he kicked the bottom of the bus with his shoe, hard enough that he accidentally left a considerable dent on the exterior. He didn’t seem to care and turned back around. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t have done that. But I feel a lot better after kicking the bus, so that’s a plus, right?”

Usually Sarti, being the tour manager who actually had to be responsible, would have lectured Gabe on that, but he decided not to bother since he’d rather not have Gabe get even more pissed at him and kick him just as hard as he did the bus. Sarti preferred having intact kneecaps. “Um… that’s fine. Even though the bus isn’t our property and we’re renting it. But that’s fine. I guess good luck explaining it to your brother?” He sheepishly gave Gabe a nervous thumbs up before backing away.

“I think he’s scared of us now,” Gabe said to William. “That’s so fun!”

“Yeah, but what are you going to tell your brother?”

Gabe shrugged. “I have no fucking clue. But it’s fun that Sarti’s scared of us, right?”

Once on the bus, Gabe insisted on the window curtains being shut. “It makes my eyes hurt,” he explained, shielding his eyes with his hand because he’d since taken off his sunglasses. “Just _close_ them.”

It wasn’t even that bright out, considering there were a few overbearing gray clouds darkening the sky as they neared and threatened to burst at the seams with rain. However, everyone complied for once without asking questions, closing the curtains and turning on the lights instead. They’d put up with weirder at this point, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still curious.

“What if we played twenty questions?” Vicky suggested as a way to pass the time. “But, a whatever-the-fuck-is-going-on-with-Gabe-and-William edition of twenty questions.”

“Sounds like fun,” Gabe said. “I’ll let you guys do it on one condition: Nate answers all the questions.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll be funny.”

This was probably the furthest they’d get to actually finding out some answers, so everyone had no choice but to agree.

“Is it drugs?”

“Nope,” Nate said.

“Is it… a disease?”

Nate, confused, looked over at Gabe, but he just shrugged. “I don’t fucking know. Maybe? Maybe not?”

“It’s gotta be a yes or no,” Alex reminded him.

“I don’t know!” Nate exclaimed. “Gabe’s not saying anything about it!”

“Okay, can we just safely assume it’s some sort of disease so we can base our questions off of that?” Ryland asked.

Nate glanced over at Gabe again, but he just said, “I said I’m not answering anything.” Nate sighed and said, “Okay, whatever, let’s assume it’s a disease for now and keep going.”

After a moment of thinking, Vicky asked, “Is it contagious?”

“Well…” Nate leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms, pondering the question. Meanwhile, Gabe watched, pretty amused he had no fucking clue how to answer. “I… I _guess?”_

“Oh!” Vicky suddenly had another idea for a question. “Is it sexually-transmitted?”

Nate glared at Gabe, who offered no answer and just stared back. “Well, _is_ it?” Nate pressed. “You know I have no fucking clue what you and Bill get up to and I don’t want to.”

Gabe cockily grinned. “I’m not answering anything unless the Cobra tells me to.”

Nate groaned. _“Seriously?”_

“Yeah, seriously.”

“Bastard,” Nate muttered under his breath. “Based on what I know… I don’t think it is?”

“Well, how do you know, considering the context it happened?” Gabe challenged.

“I mean, the specific way the thing happened doesn’t sound like it needs to happen during sex, right?”

“But how do you know that?”

“Wait, are we talking about when Gabe drank William’s blood and got him sick?” Ryland asked.

Gabe nodded to Nate, and he said, “Bingo.”

“Okay, so Gabe’s whole sickness had to do with this weird thing going on?”

“Yeah.”

“What are some STDs you think could have caused the symptoms?” Alex asked, turning to Ryland and Vicky. He was about to start listing on his fingers all the STDs he could think of, but Gabe interrupted him.

Gabe sighed. “We _never_ established it was sexually-transmitted.”

“Oh, so the Cobra lets you answer _now?”_ Nate asked.

“The Cobra likes me better than you, bitch.”

“Yeah, I can definitely see why now,” Nate said, pointing to his teeth.

“What does his mouth have to do with it?” Vicky asked.

“I can only answer yes-or-no questions, guys, that’s the whole point of the game.”

“Wait, is this some elaborate artsy music prank?” Alex asked, thinking he was onto something. “Are you guys, like, pretending the whole Cobra thing is a real thing for the art or whatever of it? That’d explain the bite we saw on Gabe’s and Nate’s necks, wouldn’t it? Wait, are we pretending William got _possessed_ by the Cobra and that’s why he’s been so weird?”

“That’d be pretty fucked up.” Gabe said instead of letting Nate answer, because he really didn’t seem capable of answering all that at once. “I don’t think me or William would throw up blood just for the art of it. But I commend you for the theory, though.”

“Damn, I really thought that’d be it for a minute,” Alex said. “But if it’s not that… then what else could this all be?”

“Yeah, as if blood kinks and fang-y bites don’t already allude to something that’s kinda fucking obvious,” Nate said. Gabe elbowed him for attempting to make the answer so obvious, probably so that the game would be over quicker and Nate, who was quite unknowledgeable on vampires, wouldn’t have to deal with this any longer. However, nobody seemed to catch onto his hint. They all just sat there, contemplating hard what blood and fangs could even mean. Nate thought it would be excusable if there wasn’t already so much evidence, but _come on,_ he’d already figured it out days ago.

“I really have no clue,” Vicky finally said, and Ryland and Alex nodded in agreement.

 _“How?”_ Nate demanded. At this point, he was honestly incredulous they hadn’t figured it out. Sure, they had no idea vampires existed, but it was _painfully_ obvious after everything that went on.

“You guys know you can still ask questions, you know,” Gabe reminded them.

“I’ve got nothing,” Vicky said.

“It’s not that hard,” Nate said. “There’s plenty of other things that have fangs besides snakes.”

Ryland snapped his fingers and sat up. “Werewolf! That’s it, right?”

Gabe threw his head back and cackled. Nate translated that laugh into, “Definitely not.”

“Werewolves don’t even exist,” Vicky said. “It’s clearly not that.”

“No, they totally do exist,” Alex said, completely convinced. “My cousin saw one in Canada.”

“Yeah, that _totally_ proves werewolves exist. Can we have a new rule, which is not asking if Gabe’s a supernatural creature that isn’t real?”

They all looked at Nate and Gabe for their approval of the rule, and Nate just said, “I don’t know, if you guys really think that Gabe can’t be a ‘supernatural creature’.”

“I knew it! He’s totally a werewolf!”

“I’m _not_ a werewolf,” Gabe said. “Let’s make that clear. Everything else can be on the table except lycanthropy and sexually-transmitted diseases.”

“That narrows it down too much.”

“Then you aren’t thinking hard enough!” Nate said. “You guys are so close--”

Gabe elbowed Nate again. “You’re not allowed to tell them if they’re close or not. Those are the game rules.”

“Is it?”

“It is.”

“It’s not.”

“It is now.”

“But then they’ll never guess it--”

“Maybe I don’t want them to guess right away, maybe I want to have some fun and watch you struggle to answer their questions because I just realized how different my life is going to be from now on and everything isn’t going to just be sunshine and rainbows and I have no fucking idea what _any_ of this means for the future!”

The room fell silent. Gabe slumped back in his seat, realizing now probably wasn’t the best time to be having a semi-freakout.

“So… not a werewolf, then?”

 _“Not_ a werewolf,” Gabe snapped. “I’m-- I’m a...” He stopped, unable to say the word, and then whispered to himself, “I just don’t fucking know anymore.” before he got up and fled to his bunk.

“What if I can never go into a synagogue again?” Gabe fretted. He’d called William after storming off to his bunk because if he were to have a breakdown, he’d at least be able to have it with someone who semi-understood his plight. “What if I can never wear a yarmulke ever again, or a Magen David, or a tallit…” He grasped at his hair, tugging what short length of curls he had. “My dad would kill me!”

“Well, we don’t know that for sure yet,” William reassured him. “It could turn out to just be a myth that we can’t walk into churches and synagogues and wherever else.”

“But if the counting stuff myth is true, which is probably one of the more obscure ones, then the thing about not being about to go into churches _has_ to be.”

“Well, I can say G-d without exploding,” William said. “So maybe it’s fine.”

“That’s true,” Gabe said. “So then I can probably say A-- Ad--- _fuck,_ I can’t say it! I can’t say the Hebrew name for G-d!”

“Try to calm down. You’re probably just panicking. It is just a word, I don’t see why you couldn’t say it.”

“Then you try saying it.”

“Okay, I will. A… A…” William fell silent. “Fuck. Okay, maybe just mumble it when you’re praying, then, it’ll _probably_ still be fine. You guys say Hashem anyway instead of that most of the time, right?”

“I guess I’ll be fine if I can still say Hashem,” Gabe said. “I guess if I mumble it all together maybe nobody will notice. But still… if I can’t say A… you know, then there’s _definitely_ the possibility I couldn’t ever go into a synagogue ever again and I’ll be a failure of a Jew just because I’m a vampire!”

“You are never going to be a failure of a Jew,” William said, although he was a goy and wasn’t exactly sure what would constitute being a failure of a Jew. He was well-aware he wasn’t helping very much, because the most experience he had was the two bar mitzvahs he went to in middle school and that was it, but at least he could say he was trying.

“Blood isn’t even kosher! It says it right there in the Torah not to eat it and it’s the only thing I can eat!”

“Gabanti,” William said, “you’re the best damn Jewish person I know. And there are a pretty decent amount of Jewish people in Chicago, so that says something." That was a lie, but Gabe didn't need to know that. "Anyways, the taste of blood makes it worth it, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, maybe, I don’t know!” While William had been talking, Gabe had taken out his laptop and was now googling the keywords _‘blood not kosher torah’_ together. “Okay, but the Torah literally says anyone who eats blood, G-d will ‘cut him off from among his people’. Does that mean I’m not even _Jewish_ anymore?”

“I don’t know. I doubt that’s what it actually means. Talk to a rabbi about it if you’re so worried.”

“A rabbi would probably call me crazy.”

“Just pretend you’re doing research for a Jewish ripped-off version of Twilight.”

Even if Gabe was able to cover up that all of his ultra-specific halakhic questions were about him personally and not a hypothetical book character, he knew he could never work up the courage. “That’s still too scary.”

“Listen, Gabe…” William was about to launch into an attempt at a half-hearted and extremely goyische motivational speech, but as he peeked through the curtain of his bunk, he saw Carden’s wrist hanging off his own bunk while he napped. He suddenly realized how thirsty he was, how beautifully pale blue the veins ran under his flesh; it was too distracting of a thought to think of much else. “I’ll call you back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> William noticing Mike's veins can't be good...
> 
> Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter!


	16. Chapter 16

William hung up abruptly, leaving Gabe alone to deal with his Jewish vampire angst with only the internet and the universe to guide him (and maybe the Cobra). Which was fucking _great._ Of course he didn’t expect William, a non-Jew, to be very helpful, but Gabe thought he could have at least _tried_ when he was close to crying.

As he shut his laptop, because he wasn’t sure if he could look at the Torah verse about blood for another second without feeling sick, his phone rang again. He picked it up quickly, hopeful it would be William realizing his mistake and calling back, but the caller just turned out to be his brother, Ricky. After the conversation Gabe had with Sarti, he could only guess what Ricky would be calling to talk about. He dabbed at his bleary eyes with the sleeve of his purple jacket and answered. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hey!” Although Ricky sounded cheery, there was a clear hidden intent in his voice. “How have you been, with tour and everything? It’s been a while since we’ve called.”

“Because you don’t usually call, you text. Let me guess, this is about what Sarti told you?”

“Well…” Ricky sighed and admitted, “Okay, yeah, maybe it is.”

“I’ll cut to the chase,” Gabe said bluntly. “No, Pete’s not crazy, and no, Sarti’s not joking. I’m actually a vampire.”

A few seconds of silence elapsed. “Oh. So, like, he really _was_ serious, huh?”

“Unfortunately.”

Another awkward silence followed. “So, like, this really isn’t a joke?”

“You have no idea how much I want to say it’s a joke, but it really isn’t.”

“Damn,” Ricky said. “Uh… that’s tough. When’d this happen?”

“Yesterday,” Gabe told him. “It’s a long story. How much did Sarti tell you?”

“An extremely condensed version of whatever Pete told him, that it happened because William did it by accident. When were you gonna tell us that you and Bill are _dating_ now, anyway? And seriously, dating a _vampire?_ You’re becoming more like a teenage girl every day, wearing neon clothes and now dating a fucking vampire.”

“The thing between me and Bill is pretty recent, we still hated each other at the beginning of tour. And you can’t judge me for dating a vampire, it’s not like I did it on purpose!”

“You gotta tell Papí eventually, you know,” Ricky said, and then he clarified, “That you’re a vampire.”

“Yeah, I’d rather tell him I’m dating a non-Jewish boy. No way in hell I’m going to tell him I’m a fucking vampire!”

“He’s going to notice eventually that you’re not breathing. He _is_ a doctor.”

Gabe didn’t know why, but he very much took offense to that assumption. “I still breathe, thank you very much!”

“Well, he’s going to notice when you don’t age.”

“Okay,” Gabe said, counting on his fingers at the same time. “But I’m twenty-eight, so I think I’ve got at _least_ a decade until that.” A decade was probably generous, but at some point he could probably just tell everyone he used an expensive anti-aging cream. Maybe it would be believable; ten years was plenty of time for 2017 to have some pretty kick-ass anti-aging creams, right?

“And he’s going to notice you not eating,” Ricky continued to list. “And he’ll notice your fangs. And he’ll notice when one day someone accidentally spills a bunch of, I don’t know, fucking paperclips or beans or whatever and you have to count each of them.”

“Okay, _fine,”_ Gabe relented. “I’ll tell him at some point.”

“And… you’re _really_ sure this isn’t a joke?”

“Do you want me to hiss into the fucking speaker or something? I don’t know how else to prove it to you besides the fact Pete literally can’t stop talking about it.”

“Wait, _can_ you actually hiss? That’d be cool.”

Gabe grudgingly opened his mouth and an unenthusiastic hiss came from the back of his throat. “There? Happy?”

Ricky scoffed, “You expect me to believe that? Put a little more effort into it. You just sound like you’re failing to pronounce the Hebrew letter ‘chet’.”

“Fine.” Gabe inhaled, drawing in a deep breath before he expelled it roughly out of the back of his throat with his fangs bared. “Was that better?”

“Much better. Maybe I actually do believe you.”

After William had snapped his cellphone shut, he slid out of his bunk and slinked toward Carden’s, where his exposed wrist hung out from underneath the curtain. William lightly ran a finger up the inside of Carden’s warm wrist, feeling over the flesh underneath which his veins pumped hot with blood.

Look, there was _no_ way William just _couldn’t_ bite him. He was thirsty, and because Gabe had recently drank from Nate when he’d finished turning, William had no idea when his next opportunity to drink blood would be. Sure, he didn’t exactly feel amazing that his bandmate was asleep and couldn’t consent to being bitten, but this was _blood._ Blood outweighed all risks, at least with William’s vampire rationale. Maybe they’d have a laugh about it if Carden found out in a few years’ time. It was _only_ a bite, after all. William totally didn’t plan on making this a habit.

His eyes darted around, making certain nobody was around. The rest of the band and the few crew members were all in the front area of the bus, leaving Carden completely defenseless. William cautiously peeled back the curtain, watching to be sure his bandmate remained unconscious as he gently lifted his wrist and raised it to his mouth.

Without a moment of hesitation, he sank his fangs through his skin. Blood flooded the perforations, flooding William’s mouth, dripping off his lips as he quietly sucked. A few meager beads landed on the floor, barely avoiding William’s socks. He moaned at the taste, his eyes fluttering shut as his grip on Carden’s wrist tightened.

What William _didn’t_ notice was Carden being startled awake by the sting, shooting up and accidentally hitting his head on the ceiling. The dull ache on the top of his head was hardly remarkable because he could only notice the fact William was literally _drinking_ his fucking _blood._ He stared wide-eyed for a second until panic overcame his sheer shock of the sight, opening his mouth to scream. However, William noticed the sound of the intake of air and glared up at Carden. One of William’s hands shot up to cover his mouth before he could so much as emit a sound.

Carden tried to yank his wrist away from William’s mouth, using his free hand in an attempt to shove him away by his forehead, but William stayed in place despite the struggle, his teeth still clamped tight to the bite. When he finished, he lifted his mouth from the wrist, running his tongue over the blood before letting his wrist drop to the mattress. With a hand still clasped over Carden’s mouth, William stared straight into his eyes and whispered, “This never happened. You have no recollection of me biting my wrist or me being a vampire. You’ll go back to sleep right now.”

As soon as he absorbed the suggestion, Carden’s struggling slowly eased to a stop and William slowly removed his hand. Right away, Carden turned onto his other side and laid down to fall asleep again, as if William had never happened, as if his wrist still wasn’t bleeding. William licked the blood off his lips and wiped it from his chin, closed Carden’s curtain, and returned to his own bunk to call Gabe again in case he would need an alibi.

Mike Carden woke up normally, as the way one usually does by sitting up and groaning, pushing away his blanket and opening the curtain. As his weariness began to lift, he noticed a stickiness on his wrist. When he looked down, his mouth dropped open at seeing the dried blood and bite mark. A scream ripped from his mouth and filled every crevice of the bus with an atmosphere of alarm.

“What’s wrong?” Butcher asked, running into the bunks with Sisky and Chizzy behind him. They saw Carden in his bunk, staring down at his wrist with horror.

Carden slowly held out his arm, displaying it to them, and his voice trembled as he said, “I think something _bit_ me while I was sleeping.”

“Holy crap!” Sisky exclaimed. “There’s gotta be a fucking snake or something on this bus!”

“A snake?” Carden demanded, leaping off his bunk and backing away. “You guys think there’s a _snake?”_

“Chiz, you deal with it!” Butcher said, pulling away Carden and backing out of the bunk area with Sisky behind them. “You’re Australian!”

 _“Me?”_ Chizzy pointed to himself, his wide-eyed expression just as terrified. “Hell no!”

William pushed his curtain open with a yawn, peeking out with his hair unkempt and wild from sleeping. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Mike got bitten by something!” Chiz yelled, and then he fled into the front of the bus.

“Fuck, really?” William hurried out of his bunk, only feigning some sense of relaxation once he had shut the door to the bunk area with a slam behind them. “How bad is it?”

“Pretty bad.” Carden held his bloody arm up and grimaced. “Shit, wait, what if it was _poisonous?_ What if I’m gonna _die?”_

“You’re probably fine if you’re not dead yet,” William said.

“No, we should _definitely_ go to an emergency room,” Sisky insisted.

“Yeah.” Carden eagerly nodded, as his arm that he still held quivered. “I think I want to go to a hospital. “We have no idea what could have bit me.”

“I’ll take him,” Butcher said, seeming more than happy to escape the bus. He grabbed the first pair of sneakers he found laying on the floor and tossed another set of shoes to Carden. “We’ll find someone in the venue to drive us.”

“Okay, we’ll just…” William tried to think what he would do if there really was a snake and it wasn’t him, a fucking vampire, who had infliicted the bite, and eventually suggested somewhat unsurely, “I guess we should call animal control... shouldn’t we?”

Although he knew it was completely pointless considering he had been the one to bite Carden, he had no other option but to put up a facade of cluelessness and blend in with the rest of his band. As Butcher ushered Carden off of the bus, everyone else remaining on the bus exited behind them while Sisky looked up the number for animal control on his phone.

“Good news,” Carden said, walking into the dressing room with gauze wrapped around his wrist. His face wasn’t very befitting of good news, a glint of dread still remaining in his eyes. “I don’t have nerve damage and there wasn’t any venom. It’ll heal and as I long as I take it easy I can still play.”

“The doctor didn’t say--” Butcher started, but Carden elbowed him.

“What the ER doctor doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” he reassured him.

“But it could hurt you--”

“It doesn’t even hurt!” Carden protested. Butcher sighed, but laid off. “The bad news is that the doctor said it couldn’t have been a snake.” He paused, and then added, “Or any identifiable animal, actually.”

“Really?” Chizzy asked, raising his eyebrows. “I mean, animal control didn’t really find anything, but… it had to be _something.”_

“When the blood was cleaned off my arm, there were… teeth marks,” Carden said. “Human teeth marks. The punctures were too far apart to be a snake or rat or anything.”

Everyone else just sat there, glancing between the gauze and Carden’s face. Unfortunately, he didn’t burst out, “Sike!” or anything of the sort. The seriousness on his face kept.

“But who the fuck would do that?” Sisky asked. “Wouldn’t you wake up feeling something taking a massive _chomp_ into your arm?”

“That’s what I would think!” Carden breathed out a heavy exhale, settling into a plastic chair by the wall. As he studied the gauze wrapped around his arm, he muttered, “This is so fucking weird.”

“You know who’s not here to react to this news?” Chizzy said, crossing his arms and cocking his head.

“You’re not seriously going to say it was--”

“Who else?” Chizzy narrowed his eyes at Carden. “Who else has a biting kink? Who else left a literal bite on Gabe’s neck? Who else was in the bunks while you were sleeping?”

“Bill wouldn’t do that!” Sisky defended, but even he, who’d known William since he was in middle school, when William was first friends with his older brother, seemed to have a semblance of doubt. “Or… well…”

“If it was a human,” Chizzy said surely, “it _has_ to be him.”

Under his breath, Butcher whispered, “This is fucking crazy.”

“I’ll go talk to him about it, then.” Carden stood up. “I bet he’s hanging out with his boyfriend or something. There’s gotta be a reasonable explanation for this, right?”

“I’ll come with you,” Sisky said, standing up.

“Me too,” Butcher said.

Chizzy was weirdly excited to confront William, so he jumped up and added, “Me three!”

They solemnly walked to Cobra Starship’s dressing room, only a few doors down the hallway. Butcher rapped his fist on the door and stepped back. Ryland opened the door, and as soon as he saw the stern, stone-cold faces of The Academy Is…, he immediately said, “William and Gabe aren’t here,” and began to close the door.

Sisky stuck his hand between the door and the doorway. “Where are they, then?”

“I don’t know, probably fucking on the bus or something?” Ryland was about to close the door again, but Chizzy snatched Carden’s gauze-wrapped arm and held it up, causing Carden to wrinkle his nose at the sudden and unpleasant sting of pain that ran down his wrist.

“We’re tired of playing games,” Chizzy sneered. “Look at what William did. He fucking _bit_ his own bandmate. You better not be hiding him in your dressing room.”

The annoyance on Ryland’s face dropped as soon as he saw Carden’s wrist. “What the fuck happened? And no, I’m not kidding, they’re not here.” He opened the door wider to prove it, showing only Alex, Vicky, and Nate were sitting in the room behind him.

“William bit him when he was sleeping.” Chizzy shook Carden’s wrist for emphasis, only making it hurt more, and Carden stole his arm back, prying it out of Chizzy’s grasp.

“He _might_ have,” Carden corrected. “We don’t know that for sure.”

“Yeah, we’ve got a similar thing going on,” Ryland said. “Gabe bit Nate and he won’t talk about it. Although he’s been fine, really, because he says it was consensual. And he’ll answer our questions as long as it’s yes-or-no, because we’re still playing 20 questions.”

“So Gabe bit one of your own bandmates, and you guys are turning it into a _game?”_ Chizzy demanded.

“Yeah,” Nate called out. “It’s not that bad. Welcome to the club, Mike.”

Carden stared back at him unamusedly. “Fuck you.”

“It’s really not that hard to put together the pieces, guys,” Nate said. “Think about it for a second. I was bitten by Gabe, Carden was bitten by William…”

“So?” Butcher shrugged.

“Come on, start listing the other weird stuff that’s happened,” Nate prompted.

“Well, William’s hissed at me because I wouldn’t let him count my M&Ms,” Carden mentioned.

Nate leaned forward, looking across everyone who was in the room or at the door and waving his hand to keep it going.

“Gabe had the same sickness as William…” Alex said. “After literally drinking his _blood_ when he was drunk, and now he’s weird too.”

“And William went missing that one time,” Sisky said. “And we had to stop at a laundromat for him to clean his bedsheets because he got Gabe’s blood _all_ over them because of their fucking blood kink.”

“Bill never eats,” Chizzy said. “Like, the only things he ever has is his juice boxes.”

“The paramedics acted super weird after Gabe fainted,” Vicky said.

“Let’s think about this,” Nate encouraged. “Biting, blood, hissing… what do you think that _describes?”_

“But we already ruled out werewolves,” Ryland said glumly.

Nate frustratedly sighed. “What’s the _opposite_ of werewolves? Come on, the opposite of Team Jacob, what is it?”

The realization seemed to come upon all of them at the same time. Their eyes widened, they stood or sat up straighter and stiffer, their faces all paling.

“Vampires,” Sisky mumbled. He blinked, leaving his mouth open for a second before he could finally say louder, “Holy shit, they’re fucking _vampires!”_

“Finally!” Nate ripped his scarf from his neck and pointed to the bite that decorated his skin, still not yet healed over. “How could you not have figured it out sooner when it’s literally right there?”

“But vampires don’t exist!” Alex protested.

“But you somehow had no problem believing your cousin’s werewolf story,” Vicky dryly remarked.

“How the hell did we not realize it before?” Carden cried out. “How did I _not_ notice his teeth when he literally _hissed_ at me?!”

“I don’t give a shit whether they’re fucking or not,” Chizzy stressed, staring Ryland straight in the eyes with a dangerous level of determination. “We’re going to that damn bus now. This bullshit ends _tonight.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh shit!! They finally found out!! And we've only got two more chapters to go! (at least, until I finish part 2 to this lol) Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed!


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I promised more smut but you know what? I just can't right now. But I have written more in the sequel, so at least you have that to look forward to? I'm really sorry. And I'm also sorry this chapter is late, college is busy. I hope you guys still enjoy?

Gabe and William were curled up close next to each other in Gabe’s bunk, naked and covered in a thin layer of sweat. It was the first time they’d had sex since Gabe had been turned into a vampire, meaning they could both be rougher with each other. Not only were there blue hickeys embellishing each other’s collarbones and neck that William’s v-neck shirts would do nothing to hide on stage, but deep and drawn-out scratches on William’s back dotted with beads of blood as well as multiple bites on the inside of Gabe’s thigh. They both looked ultimately destroyed, yet ultimately alive at the same time.

“My brother told me I should tell my dad,” Gabe said, nose pressed against William’s neck. “Do you think I should?”

“Hm,” William hummed thoughtfully. “I don’t know. How do you think he would take it?”

“Probably as any dad would when finding out their son is a vampire.”

“True.” William tucked a strand of his hair hanging in front of his face behind his ear. “I can’t imagine ever telling my family. Not even my sister. I’d be so screwed. You’re not very lucky that everyone knows your brother.”

“Yeah, I just--” They both froze as they heard the heavy, unmistakable sound of footsteps boarding the bus. “Crap, what’re we gonna do?”

“Someone probably just forgot something, pretend we’re not here.”

However, the steps lumbered into the bunks. The curtain was ripped away, exposing both Gabe and William’s bare bodies to the eyes of all their bandmates, all clustered in the narrow space. Startled, they both shrieked and sat up in a rush, grappling for whatever pieces of clothing they could find scattered around. “What the _hell?_ ” Gabe yelled, covering his crotch with a pair of jeans while William scrambled to shield himself with a t-shirt.

“Care to explain this?” Butcher demanded, pulling Carden closer by his shoulder and holding out his arm.

“What the hell do you mean?” William asked, but his voice seeped of guilt.

“Bill,” Mike asked, “did you bite me?”

Gabe turned to William incredulously. "You _bit_ him?”

“What the fuck! I did not bite anyone--”

“We figured it out,” Ryland said. He still had the curtain bunched in his hand. “You’re both vampires, aren’t you?”

“I…” William stammering, eyes growing wide. “I… I didn’t mean to! I was… I was just thirsty! And Mike’s wrist was _right there_ and--”

“You can’t just go around biting people!” Chizzy disapprovingly glared at William, his tone almost a snarl as he added, _“Especially_ not your own band members.”

“I-- fuck, I’ve gotta eat somehow! Look, can we talk about this when I’m not naked?”

“Yeah, I really don’t want to be looking at _this,”_ Vicky said. Even though she had averted her eyes, she had still accidentally caught a glimpse of the extensive scratches on William’s bare back. She shuddered. And shuddered again.

“Let’s let them change,” Butcher said authoritatively, gently pushing at Chizzy’s shoulder to get him to turn around and shuffle out of the bunks with everyone else.

“Of all the ways for our bandmates to find out,” Gabe said as he tugged his briefs on in a hurry. “This is the _worst_ one. You _seriously_ had to bite Mike? Is that why you hung up on me when I was having my Jewish crisis?”

“Where the hell else was I supposed to get blood?” William demanded, yanking his t-shirt over his head. “I was going to get blood from Nate, but then I accidentally turned you and you had to bite him. I saw an opportunity and I took it, what’s so wrong with that? I _had_ to!”

“You could have at least asked first!”

“I didn’t ask that girl and you were fine with it!

“And look where that got us, and now you’ve gotten us into even more shit!” Gabe roared. “I don’t fucking understand why you couldn’t have just _asked_ your fucking guitarist first!”

“That would entail telling him I’m a vampire!”

“Well, he figured it out anyway! Great fucking job!”

“You don’t have to rub it in!” William hissed, nose wrinkled as he bared his fangs at Gabe. “I get it, I’m a piece of shit vampire! My band will already instill that in me enough, why don’t you go have a great fucking laugh with _your_ own band because I don’t even know if I’ll have one after this!”

“At least they didn’t fucking turn me into a vampire on accident!” Gabe called out as William stormed away.

There wasn’t much talking, just awkwardly standing around and paranoid glances at William in the dressing room. The band had reasoned that maybe it was better to talk after the show, so they could at least not have as much fall out from it to think about while on stage.

Meanwhile, while Cobra Starship was admittedly _slightly_ horrified that William had bitten Carden, it passed quickly in favor of them asking Gabe everything they wondered if vampires could or couldn’t do. Gabe was happy to answer them, even if he was preoccupied by his Judaism crisis, and that he probably had to tell his father he was a vampire at some point, and the fact William’s band could potentially break up over this even if it was what William deserved for biting random people without consent and accidentally turning Gabe.

There was no way Gabe performed sober that night, that was for sure.

There was something different about The Academy Is… on stage that night. It was hard to see without picking it apart, since William and the rest of his band members put on the facade they did every night, but there was something about it that reminded Gabe of the last Midtown show, something unsure and tense and savoring in the way they played as if this could be the end even though there were still more than several shows left. Almost too much effort, almost too much pent-up energy being released. William jumped onto Butcher’s bass drum many more times than once, and that was how you knew things were serious.

The smile William had forced onto his face faded as soon as he left the stage. Although it had been hours since his band had found out he was a vampire, he still felt majorly unprepared for whatever was to come next. He didn’t even know what came next, and neither did his bandmates seem to either as William finally had the courage to lift his eyes from the floor and gaze across faces of Sisky, Carden, Butcher, and Ch--

Chizzy’s fist came out of nowhere, colliding against William’s jaw sharply and filling the lower half of William’s face with a dull, angry, hot throb. Taken aback by the force and anger in the punch, William stumbled back and fell to the ground. If anyone was going to get violent, he certainly didn’t expect Chizzy, the one who used to play guitar for a _church,_ to be the one.

Even though the shock was starting to set into the way Chizzy stood, frozen and bewildered and his fist trembling, Butcher and Carden yanked him back by his arms in case the urge to attack came again. Sisky ran to William’s side as William groaned and slowly sat up, hand clutching his jaw. “Bill, are you okay?”

Before Sisky realized _oh right,_ William was a vampire and almost felt stupid for asking if he was alright, William frantically shook his head, still holding his jaw. The bitter taste of his own blood filled his mouth from the gap where a tooth should have been. “M’tooth,” William mumbled, and he spat out blood.

Sisky’s eyes darted around the floor before he spotted the missing tooth and scrambled across the floor on his knees to grab it. “I found it!” The tooth was unusually sharp and long that it could draw blood if Sisky closed it in his palm tight enough; to make matters worse, Chizzy had not only accidentally punched out William’s tooth, but rather one of his fangs.

William reached out with his free hand for the tooth and Sisky dropped it into his palm. Upon seeing it was a fang, William was awash with panic, his hand shaking as he tightly closed his fist around it. “I need Gabe,” William said, a drop of blood running off his bottom lip as he spoke. “Someone get Gabe!”

Butcher ran off to find Gabe and Sisky hurried to his feet, yelling something about finding an ice pack as he raced away, leaving just the surrounding crew members and Carden as he still held Chizzy's arm. By now, it was apparent by the way Chizzy was silent and gaping with shock he felt immense, immediate guilt. “William, I’m… I’m _so_ bloody sorry,” he tried to apologize. “I didn’t mean to, I was scared and… just the energy after shows is like...”

As William stood up, the hand not clutching his fang cradling his jaw. He didn’t seem infuriated, only hurt and surprised. “We’ll… we’ll talk later,” he stammered out.

Chizzy opened his mouth, searching for words, but closed it. Carden gently suggested to him, “Maybe you should go to the dressing room.”

Chizzy obliged and left, just as Butcher came dashing back with Gabe behind him. Gabe immediately took William’s shoulder and suggested, “Let’s try putting the tooth back in and see if it heals on its own.”

“I don’t know if it’ll work,” William said, “I’d have to hold it there forever.”

“Okay, Plan B is my mom.”

William furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “And _why_ your mom? Don’t you hate her or something?”

“Yeah, she sucks,” Gabe admitted. “But she is a dentist. We’re not that far from her office, she might still be there if I give her a call. That’s our only option.”

William nodded. While Gabe took out his cellphone and immediately launched into Spanish with “Mi amigo es un vampiro y su diente…”, Sisky returned with an ice pack and handed it to William.

“Did you guys decide what you’re gonna do?” Sisky asked William, glancing between him and Gabe, who was now arguing with his mother and insisting over the phone, “No estoy mintiendo, es un _vampiro,_ verás.”

“Yeah,” William said, slightly muffled by the ice pack. “His mom’s a dentist.”

Sisky sighed in relief. _“Awesome,_ I was seriously not sure what we were gonna do for a moment there. Do you want us to... talk to Chiz while you’re gone, and like… start looking into… _replacements_ for the rest of tour?”

“No, you don’t have to. It’s really fine,” William insisted. “I understand why he did what he did, even if my mouth stings like a fucking bitch. We’ll talk it out when I get back.”

As Sisky nodded, Gabe snapped his cellphone shut and said, “Good news, my mom doesn’t believe a fucking word I’m saying and probably thinks I’m high but she’ll fix your tooth anyway! Let’s go!”

The cab ride to the dentist office was deadly silent. William clutched the plastic bag, filled with milk for his fang to soak in, for dear life. He’d refused to hand it to Gabe and instead forced him to hold the ice pack against his face.

“Look,” Gabe broke the silence. “I’m sorry for freaking out on you earlier, about the whole thing with Mike.”

“No, it’s ok,” William said. “I deserved it. I really shouldn’t have done that to Mike when he was sleeping. I just… I feel like everything’s ruined now. After this, there’s no way anyone will want to be in a band with me. I really screwed up. Chizzy punched me because he was _scared.”_

“If they kick you out, I’ll make you the 6th Cobra,” Gabe joked, hoping to lighten the mood. “And we’ll record _Bring It!_ Part 2, but make it really homoerotic and vampire-y.”

“Thanks for the thought,” William chuckled. “But really… if they do decide they don’t wanna do this anymore, I’m screwed. Who would really wanna work with a vampire?”

“They might come around to it,” Gabe assured him. “They just need time. You could tell they still cared when your tooth got knocked out, if they were even considering replacing your guitarist for punching you.”

William nodded. “I guess…”

“Band meeting,” Sisky said, popping his head in Cobra Starship’s dressing room a few minutes after William and Gabe had left for the dentist office.

“But… we’re not even in your band?” Alex said.

“Fine. Band _s_ meeting in our dressing room.”

“Let me take a wild guess and guess this is about William getting his tooth knocked out,” Vicky said. “How does this involve _us?”_

Sisky groaned. “I don’t have time for this. Just hurry up!”

And so, Ryland, Alex, Nate, and Vicky all dragged themselves off their dressing room’s couches and down the hallway to TAI’s dressing room. Chizzy was sulking, his eyes red from crying and leaning his head against Carden’s shoulder as he patted his back. Butcher was finishing off a sketch, because seeing William’s tooth get knocked out was, admittedly, pretty inspiring in an artistic sense.

Sisky, although the youngest, stood in the center of the dressing room to take charge of the meeting. “Okay, everyone, we’re all here to discuss the fact that William and Gabe are vampires and that whole mess. Nate,” he pointed to Nate, who seemed wary to be addressed without warning as everyone’s eyes turned to him. “Can you confirm for us that William and Gabe aren’t dangerous?”

“Um… I mean, I guess they’re not dangerous?” Nate said. “I mean, when Gabe bit me, he didn’t try to kill me or anything, he was able to stop. And William was able to stop with you--” He glanced at Carden. “--since you’re still alive and all. They haven’t actually killed anyone, at least to my knowledge.”

“Great!” Sisky beamed. “How often do they have to feed?”

“Like…” Nate thought, and then guessed, “About every two days?”

“Perfect,” Sisky said, grabbing a spare sheet of paper and pen from the counter of the dressing room. On it, he started to draw up a graph for the rest of the days of tour with two columns, one he marked for William and one he marked for Gabe. “I’ve got the _spectacular_ idea that for the rest of the tour, to keep something like this from happening again, we can all take turns giving them our blood! Any thoughts?” Everyone looked around at each other and shrugged. 

“How bad does it hurt?” Butcher asked, looking at Nate.

“It only hurts for a few seconds,” Nate explained. “But then the pain just disappears and you feel kinda nice and light. It’s really cool. Like being high, but… not really.”

“See? Nothing to worry about,” Sisky said. “Raise your hand if you’re willing to donate your blood. Nate and Mike--” He pointed at them with his pen. “You’re exempt unless there’s not enough volunteers.”

As everyone thought, eyes falling to the floor, Chizzy shot up and was the first to raise his hand. “I’ll volunteer. It’s the least I can do, for knocking William’s tooth out.”

“Awesome!” Sisky wrote down his name and looked up. “Who else? I’m volunteering too, obviously.”

Alex raised his hand, then Ryland, then Butcher and Vicky at the same time. Nate raised his hand too and said, “I’ll do it a second time.”

“Great, so that’s all of us!” Sisky wrote down everyone’s names. “It looks like there’s enough for each of us to only be bitten once during the rest of this tour. Does anyone have any preferences for when they wanna be bitten?”

“I’ll do it first, for William,” Chizzy offered. “And… I just want to say… while we’re talking, I understand if nobody wants me to be in the band anymore after this.”

“What? No, Chiz, don’t worry about it,” Carden reassured him. “William said it was fine, you were just scared. It’s a normal reaction.”

“I still shouldn’t have done it.” Chizzy shook his head regretfully. “I shouldn’t have been mad. William’s still… _William,_ he always has been, it shouldn’t have taken me punching out his tooth to realize that.”

“We’re not letting our token Australian member get away so easily,” Sisky joked. “Seriously, though, you just offering to donate your blood is going above and beyond already. We’ve all fucked up and we’re gonna get over it and just figure this out together. William and Gabe are going through something rough and even though we should have realized that sooner and tried to be there for them instead of interrogating them all the time or… looking through a stolen phone while drunk…” Sisky trailed off, blinked, and then said, “I don’t where I was going with that, but if William and Gabe got over their whole enemies thing enough to fuck, we can get over our two bands being enemies so we can feed them and don’t have to resort to our weird distrust-and-keeping-secrets shit we did before that kinda just resulted in this mess.”

“Cheesy,” Vicky said. “But I agree. It’d be just easier to get along from now on.”

“See, Chiz? You’re fine!” Sisky said. “I mean, I looked through Gabe’s phone while drunk and we’ve all forgotten about it.”

Ryland narrowed his eyes at Sisky. “You did _what?”_

“Nothing!” Sisky awkwardly chuckled. “Just a joke! _Moving on,_ so we’ve got Chizzy down for William in two days, who wants to volunteer for Gabe?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know shit about the actual last Midtown show, but it's a fic, so idk if anyone cares about the comparison lol. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed William getting his fang punched out! Only one more chapter to go, yay! I'll post on Tuesday as usual (hopefully).
> 
> As for the sequel, it's in progress but not anywhere close to being finished and I'd rather start posting it when I've got most of it done. I don't know an actual timeframe for when you can expect it, but expect anything from a few weeks to a few months from now. I'll do my best to work on it a ton after I get home for winter break, though, so I hope you're excited! It's going well so far, it's a bit more wry and I'm enjoying that sort of writing style, and it's not only got more fun drama but also the involvement of another band ;) That's all I'll say, but feel free to guess which one it'll be lol.


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last chapter!! Ahh!!

While Gabe and William waited in the waiting room of the dentist office, which smelled of sharp chemicals and mint toothpaste, the woman William assumed to be Gabe’s mother opened the door and asked, “So, this is your vampire friend?”

“Yeah.”

William got up, handing her the plastic bag with his fang in it. “Here’s the tooth.”

Gabe’s mother took the plastic bag and held it up to her eyes to inspect the fang sloshing in milk. Incredulous, she asked, _“This_ is your tooth?”

“Yes.” Gabe sighed, standing up from his chair. “It’s his tooth. Can you fix it or what?”

She lifted her eyes from the tooth to William and ordered, “Open your mouth.” William dropped his jaw and she used her gloved finger to peel back his upper lip, revealing one fang and a gap where the other should have been. “You weren’t kidding,” she remarked, eyes widening as she studied his teeth and realized they were real. “He really _does_ have fangs.” She let go of William’s lip. “I can fix it, follow me into the back. I’m Dr. Grauer, by the way, but since you’re Gabe’s friend, you can call me Jeanette.”

They followed her through the door to the back of the office, where an area with the proper equipment to put William’s tooth back into place had been prepared ahead of time. William sat down in the patient chair, while Gabe took a seat in a chair against the wall.

“How did this happen?” Jeanette asked, leaning back William in the chair so she could inspect his mouth.

“He got punched,” Gabe said, since William couldn’t speak with fingers prodding around in his mouth.

“Punched?” Jeanette seemed confused, glancing over at William’s spotless cheek. “There’s no bruise.”

“Well, he’s a _vampire,_ what did you expect?”

 _“Dios míos,”_ she muttered.

“And me too,” Gabe added.

His mother doubtfully looked up at him and, thinking he was trying to antagonize her, deadpanned, “No, you aren’t.”

“I am.” Gabe opened his mouth wide to reveal his own fangs. “See?”

“And when were you going to tell me?”

“It just happened a couple of days ago.”

Jeanette only sighed and looked back down at William. “I’m going to numb the area and put the tooth back in, then we’ll take an X-ray before I splint it.”

William made an affirmative sound of “Mhm” before she took her fingers out of his mouth and grabbed the syringe. She pushed up William’s upper lip so she could insert the needle into his gum. It only took a second before she pulled it away, leaving William’s lip starting to feel tingly as the numbness set in.

“Who punched him?” Jeanette asked Gabe, as she opened the plastic bag and carefully took the fang out of the milk to clean it off. “Was it some sort of vampire fight?”

“Nope, his bandmate did it,” Gabe said. “Our bands found out we were vampires after… stuff happened.”

“They didn’t hurt _you,_ did they?”

“No, of course not, it was just the one guy. My band members took it better than William’s for… reasons.”

“Who else knows?”

“Um…” Gabe thought. “Pete. And our tour manager. And Ricky. That’s it.”

“So you haven’t told your father yet, that you’re a _vampire?”_

“No!”

Jeanette glared at Gabe. “Call him right now and tell him.” she stated before she looked back down at William, held up the fang, and said, “I’m going to put the tooth back in now, open your mouth.”

William opened his mouth wide for her. She carefully began to press the fang back into place as Gabe finally said, “I’m not calling him.”

“If I know, he should know.”

“I’m not--”

 _“Gabriel Eduardo Saporta,_ llama a tu padre.”

 _“Fine,”_ Gabe groaned. As Jeanette held William’s tooth firmly, making sure it would stay in place, Gabe slid his cellphone out of his pocket and called his father’s number. After a few rings, Gabe didn’t bother saying hello and just said, “Soy un vampiro.” Gabe listened for a few seconds before he snapped his phone back shut, having been laughed at and hung up on, and said, “He thinks I’m drunk.”

“William, I’m going to take you over there for an X-ray,” As the patient chair raised so William could sit up, Jeanette turned to Gabe and said, “Call him back and tell him you’re not drunk while we do the X-ray.”

“He won’t believe me.”

“Do it anyway. If Ricky knows, tell him to call him.” Then Jeanette disappeared down a hallway with William, leaving Gabe alone in the corner of the office without a chance to protest. Gabe groaned out loudly, _“Ughhhh,”_ leaned back in the chair he sat in, and called again.

“No estoy mintiendo,” Gabe said as soon as his father picked up. “Y no estoy borracho. Soy un vampiro, llama a Ricky si tienes que.”

His father only sighed and said, “Soy un doctor, no eres un vampiro,” and then hung up on him again.

Gabe yelled out, “He hung up again!”

After the X-ray had been done and William’s tooth had been splinted and Jeanette was thanked profusely by both men, she asked, “So… as vampires, I assume you… bite to get blood?”

“Um… yeah,” William said. “Why?”

“You shouldn’t bite down on anything for the next week or two, especially not through… skin.”

“Oh,” William glanced over at Gabe. “Um… what are we gonna do, then?”

Jeanette shrugged. “I don’t know, you’ll have to figure it out. Maybe use a knife?”

“A _knife?”_ Gabe demanded.

“Unless you can think of any other options.”

“A knife is fine,” William said, before Gabe could argue with her. “Blood is blood, right? Well, anyways, again thank you _so_ much, for doing this on such short notice.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it.” She waved it off. “It’s not every day I find out my son and his friend are vampires.”

“Stop bringing it up,” Gabe said, rolling his eyes. “I get it, I’ll tell Ricky to call Papí in the morning and tell him I’m not lying.”

“Good, you better. He deserves to know.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Gabe forced a smile and grabbed William’s hand. “Well, thanks for fixing William’s tooth, we gotta hurry back now though, so--”

“Will you at least give me a call soon? It’s been so long, it’d be so nice if you came over for Chanukkah--”

“Yeah, whatever, sure,” Gabe said, taking a step back and dragging William with him toward the door. He took a glance out the window and lied, “I think the cab’s here, bye!”

Once Gabe and William were out the door, it was obvious there was no cab in sight, leaving them to wait in the cold. After a few seconds, William commented, “She fixed my tooth, the least you could do is try to talk to her.”

“I’m already being forced to call my dad and tell him I’m a vampire.” Gabe huffed out an exhale of frustration. “I think that’s enough payment. It’s not really your business, alright? She just… I don’t know, I still don’t forgive her after what she did, divorcing and taking everything from us when we were finally starting to do better after my dad had worked so hard, going to medical school all over again… it’s just _bullshit._ I don’t think I could watch her light Chanukkah candles and smile like that never happened.”

William nodded, silent before he said, “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Gabe said. “It’s just… complicated. Right now I’m just glad your tooth is alright.”

They waited for a few more minutes, a fleeting and light sprinkling of snow coming and going in the meantime before William blurted out, “I feel like this is the end.”

Rather than sounding befuddled, it seemed Gabe knew what he was talking about as he asked softly, “The end?

“Like Midtown,” William said, “Like this is it. Like me being a vampire and Chizzy punching me… it’s the last straw. We couldn’t even trust each other this entire tour. How could we go on tour again if we’re still like this?”

“It didn’t feel like Midtown,” Gabe lied, even though he was well aware he’d had the thought in his head too. “You guys can still make it work.”

“I can’t stop thinking about it,” William said. “We’ll fail. I’ll have to have a mediocre solo career nobody cares about, because nobody cares about solo music, and then I’ll quit after five years of trying and everyone will forget about us, and it’ll be like The Academy Is… never existed in the first place, just as we were getting _somewhere.”_

Gabe laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You’re overthinking, Bilvy.”

“I know, but still.” The numbness still prickled at William’s mouth, a constant reminder of the situation. Under his breath, he whispered mournfully, “It could happen.”

When William finally reappeared on the crowded TAI bus, Gabe behind him, a collective wave of relief swept through everyone who was there, not only the members of The Academy Is…, but also Cobra Starship. The instant relief didn’t do anything to comfort William at all; he knew whatever happened in the next few minutes would be more telling of what was to come next after the tour ended.

After Chizzy had sincerely apologized again for punching William, and William had reassured him it was really fine, and everyone had said their variation of _“I’m so glad you’re okay, Bill, that was scary!_ ” or whatever, Sisky stood up, cleared his throat, and took a folded piece of paper out of the pocket of his jeans.

“So, Bilvy and Gabe,” Sisky started. “After you guys left, we all had a conversation and talked and um… we’re all really sorry we didn’t trust you more and invaded your privacy, and--”

Ryland interjected, “Apologize for the phone.”

Both Sisky and Alex sighed and mumbled at the same time, “We’re sorry for looking through your phone, Gabe,” while looking down at the ground. Gabe squinted his eyes in confusion at them, but before he could open his mouth to press further, Sisky’s eyes snapped back up and his voice returned to as before. “Anyways! We’re all very sorry, and we realize how damaging us being fucking weird about this shit was, and also we all decided not to be enemies anymore ‘cause we’re all mature, so we made this for you.”

Sisky held out the folded sheet of paper toward Gabe and William. William took it and unfolded it as Gabe looked over his shoulder, revealing a messily-scrawled chart of dates and the names of the band’s members. “What is this?”

“We’re gonna donate our blood to you for the rest of the tour,” Butcher said. “So you guys don’t gotta resort to like… biting people while they’re asleep or anything.”

William and Gabe lit up as they each studied the chart. “That’s so…” Gabe’s smile broke into a grin. “Holy shit, you guys didn’t need to do this for us!”

“Really, you didn’t,” William said happily. “Thank you guys so much. Really, this is incredible. You’re all too nice.”

Like a group of friends would at the end of a teen rom-com movie, they all group-hugged. As soon as William felt the warm and sweaty arms of his bandmates around him, the sense of dread he had about their destiny lifted, as if a curse had been undone.

“By the way,” Gabe mentioned when the group-hug was over, “William can’t bite anything for a few weeks because of his tooth, so he’s gonna have to use a knife to cut you guys for the blood.”

Being the first one scheduled to let William drink his blood, Chizzy’s face paled.

“But not that deep!” William clarified, seeing Chizzy’s alarm. “It won’t hurt that bad, I swear!”

Gabe woke up to his cell phone’s incessant ringing alongside three missed calls from his father. Still overwhelmed from the events that had transpired the previous night, it wasn’t until Gabe had picked up that he realized his father was probably calling because last night, through the haze of celebratory drinking that followed being given the schedule, Gabe had somehow remembered to text Ricky to call their dad and convince him Gabe really was a vampire. Now that he thought about it, Gabe hated his drunk self. “Hola, Papí, what’s up?”

“Ricky called me this morning,” his father, Diego, said. “So, you’re really a vampire?”

Gabe sighed, rolling over in his bunk. “Yeah.”

He could practically see his father pinching the bridge of his nose as he muttered, “Oye.”

“You alright?” Gabe asked, suddenly feeling a little guilty that the news had to be sprung on his poor father now. Maybe it would have been better to pretend he was drunk like Diego had originally thought. “I’m sorry. I know it’s… pretty big news.”

“There’s plenty of worse things, I suppose,” Diego said. “How did this happen? You’re not getting mixed up with dangerous people _again,_ are you?”

“No, nothing like that,” Gabe quickly assured him. He wasn’t sure how to explain the entire situation without revealing William was his boyfriend and that it was William’s fault for accidentally turning him in the first place, so Gabe just settled for the classic phrase of, “It’s a long story.”

“We can discuss it later,” Diego said, “But I want you to know, mijo, I’ll always love you, regardless of whether you’re a vampire or not.”

A smile grew on Gabe’s face. The acceptance was almost too easy; a tear slipped from his eye as he said, “Te quiero también. Really, Papí, though… I’m different now. I… can’t even say A--” The word caught on Gabe’s tongue, hot and fiery with struggle. “I can’t even say Hashem’s name anymore. I don’t know if I’d be able to wear a Magen David or enter a synagogue… I’m hardly a Jew now that I have to drink _blood.”_

“Mijo,” Diego’s voice was gentle, “you are still as much of a Jew as you were before. You’re Jewish forever. If this wasn’t your fault, Hashem has nothing to blame you for. It must be considered pikuach nefesh if you need to drink blood to live and you’re not hurting anyone. If you need to talk to a rabbi about it, I could call up that nice one that lives just down the street, I’m sure he’ll agree with me.”

More tears glistened on Gabe’s cheek, not out of shame but joy his father was taking it so much better than he initially thought he would and that Gabe’s consumption of blood could be considered pikuach nefesh, the principle that the preservation of life overrode all other Jewish laws, which was comforting. He’d nearly forgotten about the concept, and although it probably would take Gabe a while to view his new diet that way, the idea slowly made him feel Jewish again. “Thank you, Papí.”

“And if you do ever need a way to get blood… I’m a doctor, I _do_ have connections.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Gabe scolded, even though another tear fell knowing the lengths his father would go to. “I’m not gonna let you lose your license to practice over me. You don’t have to worry, though, my bandmates and I worked out a schedule so I can take blood from them for the rest of the tour.”

“And what will you do after the tour?”

Gabe pursed his lips. His hesitation was telling. “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“I can’t just let you starve when you get home, mijo, I--”

“Seriously, Papí, it’s okay. I’ll figure it out,” In reality, planning for what to do when he got home hadn’t so much as crossed Gabe’s mind. He didn’t want to rely on his bandmates for blood forever; they were only human, after all, and if it took only eight days for Gabe to eventually drink from all of them if he needed blood every two days, there no doubt they would all collapse from blood loss or develop anemia at some point. Gabe was more than sure Pete would be a willing donor if asked; but one more person still wouldn’t make much more of a difference.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, don’t worry about it.”

“Alright. The offer is always on the table, though. I’ve got to get back to work in a few minutes, but I’ll call you later, okay? I love you, mijo, no matter what.”

“Love you too, Papí. Nos vemos.”

Gabe hung up and crawled out of his bunk, grinning ear-to-ear. William was in the living area, stirring himself a hot chocolate since he had stayed the night on the Cobra Starship bus in case anything happened with his tooth. “Someone looks happy,” William commented with a smile, continuing to stir his hot chocolate while Gabe wrapped his arms around his waist and leaned his head on his shoulder.

“My dad called me this morning,” Gabe told him. “He took the whole vampire thing way better than I thought.” He decided not to mention Diego’s offer to acquire blood for him at the moment; he completely doubted the idea would ever come to fruition.

“That’s incredible, Gabanti. I’m so proud of you.”

“Thanks.” Gabe nodded into his shoulder. “How’s your tooth been doing?”

“Good. I haven’t felt a thing since last night,” William said. “I still feel bad about the fact I’ll have to cut Chizzy’s skin to get blood from him, though. That’ll certainly be interesting.”

Gabe shrugged. “Maybe it’s more sanitary.”

“Maybe.”

“Speaking of which,” Gabe took a look around the bus. They were alone in the front area of the bus; everyone else was probably still recovering from their hangovers in their bunks. “What will we do about blood after tour?”

“Hm.” William hummed thoughtfully as he lifted the mug of hot chocolate to his lips, “Haven’t thought about it yet,” and the conversation was left at that.

The next few days, in comparison to the atmosphere of suspicion that had pervaded before, passed relatively peacefully. For the first time, without any unexplainable behavior or band rivalries, the tour began to feel like a normal tour.

The audience seemed to see it, too, taking more notice of the vibe of the show now that the band’s differences had been resolved rather than how, one by one, everyone started wearing scarves or band-aids on their necks. That isn’t to say _nobody_ noticed the sudden appearance of scarves or band-aids, but whenever a fan asked a question about it, it was quite obvious they thought all the band members were gay for each other and leaving hickies instead of being bitten by vampires. More fanfiction was spurred than rumors, that was for sure.

The last show in Chicago arrived before they knew it. The entire day leading up to it felt bittersweet, more so than usual. Neither William or Gabe were ready to separate from each other, considering William would go home straight to his apartment after the show ended and Gabe had a flight in the morning back to NYC. They lingered around each other the entire day, cuddling and kissing each other’s cheeks every second they could and nearly every time narrowly missing fans spotting it.

From behind the stage, Gabe could hear the crowd’s frenzied screaming as the lights in the venue began to darken. William and the rest of The Academy Is… stood there with Cobra Starship, all secretly marvelling in the contrast to the first show of the tour. On day one, they’d all despised each other; now their lead singers were vampire boyfriends. Huh.

“I’m gonna miss you,” William told Gabe, taking one of his hands and tangling his fingers in his.

A light smile crossed Gabe’s lips as he chuckled. “The show hasn’t even started yet.”

“Still,” William said, “I don’t know how I’m gonna go from seeing you every day to not. You’ve helped me so much with the whole vampire thing… you can’t just leave me alone like this.”

“I’ll visit, don’t worry.” Gabe used his free hand to tuck a strand of hair behind William’s ear and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need luck.”

“You’re right, I don’t need luck when I’ve got the Cobra.”

William rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide his grin. “Well, okay. Fangs up, I guess?”

Gabe took his hand away from William’s to hold it up behind his other hand as he made ‘fangs’ with two curled fingers. He grinned, revealing his set of actual fangs as he exclaimed, “Fangs up!” before giving William another kiss on his cheek and hurrying to the stage, where the eager fans would chant the same thing in a much different context.

_TO BE CONTINUED..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always hold myself to such a high standard for endings, so I hope you guys enjoyed the last chapter?? Everything has been fixed... mostly. Just enough for the sequel to continue off of, which is so far very fun to write :) I can't wait to eventually start posting it, but for now, it's still got a ways to go. Remember to subscribe to the series if you wanna know when it comes out :D
> 
> Thank you everyone for all your kind comments and kudos and support!! If you want to keep up with me off ao3/tell me I suck, my instagram is @lostinpacithicctime and my twitter is @inpacithicctime :D

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter and are excited to see where it's heading! Thank you :)


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